Passchendaele (DVD, 2009, Canadian)

History can be dry, boring, and tedious-- but in this case Gross actually did everything right, using real events, real "things" that may have happened to individuals being combined into one storyline, one "telling" that captures your attention and takes you through the events of something that took place over ninety years ago.

The way weapons were handled, the way people acted, what they did, it is all honesty related, it is both more accurate than any previous movie about the Great War that I have seen, and there is neither sugar coating nor painting horror with broad strokes. This is what happened and why the aftermath "back home" was such a trying period.

The extras are worth as much or more attention as the movie itself commands. Actual still photos and movies shot during the Great War are juxtaposed with the movie footage so you can see both how the scenes were created and get a true feeling for what happened "when hell came to Earth."

One tiny bit of trivia that is in the movie and in the extras might catch you by surprise-- where the term "Storm Troopers" comes from and both to whom it refered and how it was used.

Enjoy it, but be warned that this is a very violent and graphic treatment of the subject.

Just more accurate than anything before.

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