Film Reviews by DH

The Blu-ray I was sent was in Spanish (as expected) but only with German subtitles. So I’m not quite sure what was going on all the time. Good battle sequences, though, and occasionally English/Irish and some French characters turned up and I could understand for a short time. 

The film depicts the book (which I've only read in the scroll version) on screen, obviously missing out many of the events in the book, such as almost everything that happened in all the visits to Denver. The book is a romanticising of the travels and relationships by the author; in film it can't help but show what happens, rather than a romanticised version of it, and so it reduces some of the spiritual moments to their rather more squalid reality. It also adds some events to make a few nods towards the spirit of the book that were less emphasised in the text.

I watched it with someone who had not read the book, and they liked it, but I think you would get a lot more out of it if you have read the book first. Having read the book you may disagree with the depictions of the characters, of course. Personally I particularly liked the Allen Ginsberg character.

My Samsung blu-ray player played this disc on the first evening, but on the second would only show a still image of the first splash screen of the disc. So we watched half the film - and didn't get to see the second half.

So, be careful if you want to watch this disc with a Samsung player, even if you had the latest firmware - which we did - you may not be able to see the whole thing.