Living Landscapes: World's Most Beautiful Mountains
(2009)
Living Landscapes: World's Most Beautiful Mountains Blu-ray delivers stunning video and great audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
Take a peek at the planet's most picturesque peaks in this globe-spanning documentary series, which captures breathtaking mountain ranges in Europe, Asia, North America and South America -- all in gorgeous high-definition photography. The journey includes spectacular vistas of Patagonia, the Swiss Alps, the Austrian Alps, the Himalayas, the Rockies, Yosemite Valley and the mountains of New Zealand.
I was lucky enough to grow up around the grandeur of incredible mountains, in my case the Wasatch Range in Utah. In fact the "dream home" my parents built when I was still a small child was at an altitude of well over 4,000 feet, providing me a literal bird's eye view not only of the Salt Lake valley but also a first hand look at the unbelievable ecologies which inhabit a relatively high altitude. I had to laugh when I later ended up in the Pacific Northwest and people would point to what I saw as little more than hills, which the natives nonetheless referred to as "mounts" or even, yes, "mountains." Mt. Hood, sure, though it's always looked rather lonely to me in its singular glory. Mt. St. Helens—well, before the eruption, perhaps. But there is nothing akin to the Wasatch or the Rockies or the Tetons here—huge geologic structures which persist for literally hundreds of miles. For those of you who may live in environments not touched by the mighty jutting peaks that might, like music, be termed "frozen architecture," or even if you are lucky enough to be in an area with some mountains, will probably find a lot to enjoy in this latest Living Landscapes release.
Michael Heumann's Living Landscapes series has consistently provided some of the best examples of "ambient television" out there, screensavers of a sort for your flat panel television which provide just enough interest to captivate the eye if one is really paying attention, but also not intrusive enough to interrupt a social gathering if the vistas are meant to be a sort of virtual wallpaper. It's an interesting, if perhaps somewhat self-defeating, premise. After all, if you're spending thousands of dollars on a home theater system, do you really want it to be ignored? On the other hand, one can't always be watching the latest special effects blockbuster, and Heumann's products help fill the gap of what do with your system when you want it on but don't necessarily have the time or interest to sit there in rapt attention.
The peaks of Patagonia
World's Most Beautiful Mountains is easily one of the most visually impressive offerings in the Living Landscapes series. The hour or so program begins in Torres del Paine in Southern Patagonia, Chile. Several beautiful landscapes are explored, including a lovely high mountain lake with a gorgeous rainbow cresting into the waters, and, later, a wonderful plain full of incredible fall foliage. Stark wintry scenes are also offered, with sheer cliff faces full of ice and snow. The glacial views continue in the next segment, devoted to the Swiss and Austrian Alps. While the first part of this sequence is given over largely to snowy environments, we then get to see lush verdant glades where you half expect Julie Andrews to come gliding over the crest of a hill singing "The Sound of Music." Some of the most awesome footage in Mountains comes from the Mountain Temples of the Himalayas. Seeing these incredible structures tucked into cliffsides or hugging the banks of a beautiful river may convince some they've wandered into a real life Shangri-La.
Next we are stateside in the lovely environments of Yosemite and the Grand Tetons. These are long, langorous segments of incredibly beautiful imagery, frequently utilizing reflections of various peaks caught in the tranquil and mirror-like waters of mountain lakes. California's Sierra Buttes are up next with one of the longer unedited takes in this set, of a lovely lake surrounded by impressive peaks. Mt. Cook National Park in New Zealand's Queensland offers a full day of various sights and sounds, including some incredible turquoise colored water. We then return to Yosemite, although this time in winter, for some lovely shots of snow covered cliffs and beautiful rivers rushing through frozen environments. Next up is my neck of the woods, the Cascades, with the lovely vision of Crater Lake front and center.
We jump continents and seasons yet again with a visit back to the Alps, this time the Tyrol in springtime, with unbelievably lush valleys full to the brim with multicolored wildflowers. Heumann must have cashed in some Frequent Flyer miles, for we're back in the Tetons next, this time in summer, featuring some lovely views of sunlight glinting off of high mountain lakes. If you've seen the Living Landscapes Wild Africa, you'll have some clue as to the beauties in the next Mountains segment, filmed in Tanzania, "in the shadow of Kilimanjaro." (In fact I think maybe some of this footage was featured in Wild Africa, which I reviewed some months ago). Then we return to Patagonia, with some more great footage of wildlife which populates these incredibly high climes.
Aside from the visual glories on display here, Heumann has provided a multi-artist soundtrack for one of the two mixes available. Unlike some of the other Living Landscapes offerings which feature fairly generic New Age music, these compositions are redolent of the areas in which the filming took place, with, for example, the group Kollosayu providing authentic Andean music with panpipes. Pianists Gary Malkin and Scott Cossu also provide some striking music, though I personally could have done without the Swiss "oom pah pah" waltzes.
Living Landscapes: The World's Most Beautiful Mountains sports one of the crisper images in this series, one which, despite being 1080i (encoded via VC-1), exhibits next to none of the interlacing artifacts that occasionally crop up on other Living Landscapes releases. This is a wonderfully clean and clear Blu-ray, with some jaw dropping scenery. Some of the best detail actually comes via the wildlife portrayed. A coyote's fur, for example, is shown with virtually every last individual hair standing out in unique relief. Colors are lifelike and very well saturated throughout the program, with the fall foliage segment and the Swiss wildflowers segments two standout segments.
I've mentioned in my other Living Landscapes reviews that I can't really take Heumann to task for not providing lossless soundtracks. After all, these releases are meant to be "ambient" television, part of the background for the most part. That said, the two DD 5.1 offerings here (one with music mixed with nature sounds, the other with just the nature sounds) are among the better, albeit lossy, tracks in the series. As noted above, the music track in particular (mixed with natural sounds) is more scene specific than in previous Living Landscapes releases, offering some especially evocative scoring for the Patagonian sequences. As also mentioned above, the Swiss music was a little more irritating, at least to me, but it was at least more or less authentic to the region. The ambient nature sounds are well mixed into the surround soundfield so that water sounds gurgle through the rear channels and you never quite know where to expect a bird chirp to emanate from next. The sound quality itself is excellent, with no hint of distortion or dropouts. I can't imagine too many people are going to complain about this release not sporting lossless tracks.
This is easily one of the more awesome releases in the Living Landscapes series, with some flat out inspirational sights mixed with some very appealing music. If you haven't delved into this admittedly niche product line, you might want to check out World's Most Beautiful Mountains. The view is, as they say, spectacular.
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