Richard Bangs' Adventures with Purpose: Switzerland, Quest for the Sublime Blu-ray delivers great video and decent audio in this overall recommended Blu-ray release
Experience Switzerland's majestic alpine beauty like never before in high definition. Visit Lucerne, and go to Bernese Oberland, often called one of the most beautiful places in the world, before heading to St. Moritz to take the Glacier Express up, up, up to Zermatt. Go on a hair-raising gondola ride in the Swiss Alps, explore caves and try hay soup. Then, see one of the tallest peaks in the Alps — and the deadliest — the Matterhorn. Experience the rapture of this dangerous mountain as you join explorer Richard Bangs on an unforgettable journey to discover what true adventure travel is all about in Switzerland.
My parents used to joke that my ancestral genetic code was something akin to Heinz' 57, "a little this-a and a little that-a." My father's side of the family is especially shrouded in mystery, as he was orphaned at an early age and was always reticent to discuss his upbringing. Only with the advent of the internet and the opening of the Mormon genealogical files on such sites as Ancestry.com were my sisters and I ever able to piece together even a semblance of our paternal background. My mother's side of the family, on the other hand, was an open book. I still remember her pulling out a huge (probably six foot by six foot) blueprint of her family tree, which went all the way back to the 13th century and began in the 1200's with three brothers who evidently were quite famous for helping to defeat the Hapsburgs and form the Swiss Confederacy. There is in a fact a city in Switzerland named after my mother's maiden surname, and this family tree states that my ancestors were once the heads of the Canton of Uri, where Zurich is located. I think it says something about human psychology, or at least my personal psychology, that though I have always had treasure troves of information about my Swiss heritage, it was the more enigmatic background of my father's forebears that always captured my fancy, and I really have never looked very deeply into my mother's lineage. That may change now that I've experienced a pretty glorious travelogue through Switzerland courtesy of Richard Bangs, whose Adventures with Purpose series typically highlights some ecological situation centered around various locales. This iteration based in Switzerland is subtitled Quest for the Sublime, and rather than focusing on an endangered species, for example, instead focuses on the history of ecologically based tourism, which Bangs posits as having started in Switzerland a couple of centuries ago.
The beautiful mountains of Switzerland.
Bangs takes on a whirlwind, 56 minute trip through both the glacial peaks of the Alps and the urban centers of Switzerland's gleaming cities. This is one preternaturally beautiful country, and in fact the beauty was so literally awesome to the 18th and 19th century European proponents of "The Grand Tour" lifestyle that they started using the term "sublime" for it. Several experts talk about this usage, which is based less in etymology than experiential reaction. It's easy to understand why some of the first visitors to Switzerland were equally impressed by and also more than a bit terrified by the terrain they encountered. Many of the higher peaks of the nation had almost sinister reputations, perhaps due to the mortality rate amongst those who deigned to trek up above the foothills.
As always with these Adventures with Purpose, Bangs gives us both a natural history of the country and climate, as well as a sociological tour of the people and their customs. Also as usual, Bangs finds some wonderfully wacky ways to spend his travel time. My favorite on this particular episode was Bangs' catapult down the world's longest summer toboggan run atop the gorgeous Mount Pilatus. None other than Robert Louis Stevenson also experienced this madcap rush down the hillside and recommended it to people far and wide to help them stay hale and hearty. I did a cursory Google to see if this ride had ever been featured on CBS' The Amazing Race, and it doesn't look like it has been yet, but it sure seems perfect for that show and I wouldn't be surprised to see it pop up on a future round the world escapade.
Bangs doesn't just stay topside on this outing, and actually takes the viewer into a secluded prehistoric cave, where evidence of millions of years of geologic activity is there for modern eyes to behold. Though he doesn't actually show it, there are also evidently skeletal remains of long extinct species like the cave bear.
This is an incredibly colorful and enjoyable episode of the usually excellent Adventures with Purpose. The gorgeous mountains and lakes of Switzerland, about which Richard Wagner raved to Ludwig II, lend themselves incredibly well to this kind of armchair travelogue format, and Bangs' always affable demeanor helps to impart both a sense of the incredible geography as well as the culture of this country which has always had a special cachet among the European Union.
Despite being an interlaced video encoded via MPEG-2, my hunch is most viewers will be pleasantly surprised by Switzerland: Quest for the Sublime. This is easily one of the most colorful of the Adventures with Purpose series, and the varied palette here is sumptuously robust, with especially strong reds, blues and greens. Take a gander, for example, at the crazily painted train which makes its way up an Alpine peak, and you'll be greeted by a riot of bright primary colors, all bursting with vibrancy. Detail is generally sharp, though sometimes motion can seem a little blurred. Unlike some other Adventures with Purpose titles, I didn't notice any egregious artifacting on this outing. Overall, a strong presentation for a television title.
The only audio option on Switzerland: Quest for the Sublime is an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 track. Some audiophiles may quibble with the lack of surround, but the fact is 99.9% of this feature, as in all the Adventures with Purpose episodes, is simply Bangs talking, either onscreen or via voiceover. While there is a clear qualitative difference between the narration done in studio and live on location (sometimes oddly done in the middle of a sentence), it's not too distracting in the long run. Bangs' voice is always clear and crisp and centrally placed. A pleasant underscore is well mixed into the proceedings.
Once again per the previous titles in this series I've reviewed for Blu-ray.com, though the included advertisement for the SD-DVD touts bounteous extras, there are none to speak of on this Blu-ray, only trailers and a link to some websites. What's up with that?
There's no way you'll remain neutral (sorry, couldn't resist) when watching Switzerland: Quest for the Sublime. All of the Adventures with Purpose titles have at least something to recommend them, but this is an unusually excellent display of gorgeous imagery matched with some really interesting information.
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