Search - In the Footsteps of the Holy Family on DVD

Interesting But Leaves the Viewer Feeling a Little Short Cha

Frederick Baptist | Singapore | 02/24/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This DVD has a very interesting premise: it's rare for documentaries on this topic to focus on the Holy Family's flight to Egypt and subsequent return to Nazareth in addition to the more commonly covered 3 Magi and Nativity episodes. However, we have here 3 episodes on two discs which is surprising given the short length of each episode, surely just the one disc would suffice but I guess 2 discs gives them more of an excuse to slap a higher price on this baby so as to afford to pay the narrator, Roger Moore of James Bond fame, his wages.

I would have preferred it better if they had made this more of a documentary instead of adding the dramatisations played by very bad actors in the miracle scenes which had the effect of making the whole thing come across as an act of fiction which I am sure wasn't the producer's intention. This documentary traces what tradition says is the route that the Holy Family took on their flight to Egypt and the miracles that were and are currently still being experienced at locations along that route. There is a short coverage on the Magi which is interesting but there appears to be a lack of focus as the topics covered seem to jump around a lot for example at one stage it almost becomes a whodunnit when they talk about alleged murders of people involved in the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels (almost like the Da Vinci Code).

Overall, this is a poorly made documentary of what appears to be an attempt at capitalising on the Christmas Season. The video quality is also verging on VHS although the sound quality at Dolby Digital Stereo standard isn't too bad. Instead of trying to cover so many themes at one time and in a disjointed way, they should have just chosen one and done as good a job as possible on that one theme. For me I would have liked that theme to be the locations on the flight route and what they are like today without the dramatisations and the other stuff.

This is a poorly made documentary and is not recommended."