Dom Robinson reviews
The Land Girls
Distributed by
Film Four
Producer:
Screenplay:
Keith Dewhurst and David Leland (based on the novel by Angela Huth)
Music:
Cast:
Prue: Anna Friel (Mad Cows, Rogue Trader, The Tribe, TV: Brookside, Cadfael, Our Mutual Friend)
Stella: Catherine McCormack (Braveheart, Dancing at Lughnasa, Loaded, Northstar)
Ag: Rachel Weisz (Amy Foster, Chain Reaction, Going All the Way, I Want You, The Mummy)
Joe: Steven Mackintosh (Blue Juice, Different For Girls, The Grotesque, House of America, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, London Kills Me, Prick Up Your Ears, Twelfth Night, TV: The Buddha Of Surburbia, Our Mutual Friend,
Undercover Heart)
H: Tom Georgeson (Downtime, A Fish Called Wanda, TV: Between the Lines, Boys From the Blackstuff, Liverpool 1, The Professionals)
The Land Girls
takes three girls - the practical Stella (Catherine McCormack), the
prudish Ag (Rachel Weisz) and the care-free, adventurous Prue (Anna
Friel) - and has them answer the call of the Women's Land Army when World War II
continues apace. It's 1941 and as the men pointlessly slaughter each other out on
the battlefield, the women are left to pick up the pieces around the countryside.
However, it's not just peeling spuds and milking cows that are in their remit.
Sex comes to town in the form of local, handsome farmer Joe (Steven
Mackintosh) who awakes their natural urges as the girls get to know one
another and him. The film also follows the other loves in their lives during
this time. There's also a cameo from The Young Ones' Nigel Planer
in one of the closing scenes.
The picture quality of this disc is almost perfect with artifacts only showing if
you're looking too closely. Sitting at the normal viewing distance you'll have no
problems with the picture that has a good average bitrate of 5.9Mb/s, occasionally
peaking over 9Mb/s. Also, we are treated to a great anamorphic transfer, retaining
the film's original 2.35:1 theatrical aspect ratio which does the power of good for
the gorgeous landscape shots throughout the film.
The sound is reproduced in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround) as originally filmed.
It all comes across fine, but it's not the sort of film that will have your neighbours
banging on the walls with its gentle score and farmyard ambience. Brian Lock's gentle
score sets each scene perfectly as well as gracing many of the DVD menu screens.
Extras :
Chapters and Trailer :
There are 16 chapters covering the 106 mins of the film - the standard amount for most
Film Four/VCI titles and as usual it could use more. The original theatrical trailer is included.
Languages/Subtitles :
Dialogue is available in English only and for the first time since I can remember, this
is a Film Four/VCI disc that actually has English subtitles.
Deleted scenes :
Ten scenes making up just over half-an-hour of extra footage. Looking at them, they would have
fitted very well into the film, but as the optional director's commentary explains, some of
them were cut mainly for reasons of pace and you'll find out which ones David Leland
would rather have put back in.
They're split into two pages of five each, but the second page cannot be accessed initially
by my Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM, with the same problem I had with the photo gallery. However,
they can be accessed individually by looking at "titles" 11-20 for the ten deleted scenes.
I accessed title 16 (the sixth deleted scene and the first that I couldn't access in the
regular manner) and after that it brought up the second page of deleted scenes so I can view
them properly.
It's interesting to hear David Leland extolling the virtues of DVD at the end
of the last clip, the alternative ending, in which he says that DVD allows him
to have the chance of letting the public see all these clips as extras, whereas
they would normally be consigned to the vault and never seen again.
Behind the scenes :
Eight-and-a-half minutes of raw footage watching the actors hard at play. With this and the
commentary from the deleted scenes, it's incredible to see how anyone can get a film made
when the ground and fields are little more than mud.
Featurette :
Just over six minutes long, this contains clips from the film cropped to 16:9, with comments
and chat from David Leland, Steven Mackintosh and the three girls.
Cast and Crew interviews :
Catherine McCormack, Anna Friel, Rachel Weisz, Steven Mackintosh, producer Simon
Relph and director David Leland each get a few minutes to tell you about how they
see the film and each other. Each person's interview is split up into three or four sections,
but Leland's is unique in that it's the only interview which has each section encoded on the
DVD as a separate 'title' that needs to be branched together.
1940's Archive footage :
Three minutes of original archive footage from the time this happened. It allows you to see
how close the film-maker's were in achieving the look of the film.
Photo library :
A selection of stills from the series but for some reason my DVD-ROM player
(Creative Dxr2) only lets me see the first one and then reverts back to the 'extras'
menu even if I select the option to view the next picture. This also happened on the
recent
