Rare archival footage, recordings and photographs, eye-witness accounts and expert comments along with location shoots across India, bring alive the fascinating journey of George, John, Paul and Ringo from their high octane celebrity lives in the West to a remote Himalayan ashram in search of spiritual bliss that inspires an unprecedented burst of creative songwriting. It is the first serious exploration of how India shaped the development of the greatest ever rock band and their own pioneering role bridging two vastly different cultures.

Director Ajoy Bose was a teenage rebel in Calcutta in love with the Beatles when they came to India. His long mop and the psychedelic flowers painted on his shirt imitating the Fab Four led to fierce fights with his bureaucrat father. In an interesting quirk of fate half a century later as an established journalist and author, Bose was writing a book, Across the Universe to mark the 50th anniversary of The Beatles historic trip to Rishikesh for the worlds largest publishing house Penguin Random House.

Inspired by Ajoy Boses book, British Indian music entrepreneur Reynold DSilva has now taken the amazing saga of The Beatles and India further by producing Boses directorial debut. Bose and cultural researcher, co-director, Pete Compton, have created an audio-visual presentation that stands apart from the many documentaries on the band, delving deep into the most crucial period of their evolution from the worlds most famous pop stars into multi-faceted pioneering musical artists.

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Video Quality

The Beatles and India comes to Blu-Ray with a very lovely high definition master that suits the film as well as you might hope. As is typical with documentaries on subjects from decades ago, the film features a lot of different material in varying degrees of quality. The new interviews look incredibly solid and clear with natural skin tones and some detailed facial features on the subjects. The archival footage features a variety of different sources that seem to be in the best shape possible given the filming limitations. Some footage appears to be authorized within the compound while other is taken from far away as people tried to get a glimpse of the Fab Four. Much of this footage is pretty ragged, but it helps bring a glimpse of history into the modern world. The colors featured in the film have a decent degree of vibrancy to them. The transfer has not fallen victim to any compression artifacts or digital nuisances of the sort. MVD Entertainment has delivered a great presentation for fans.

Audio Quality

This Blu-Ray disc comes with a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and a LPCM 2.0 track which perfectly suits the source material. Since this is a film focused on world famous musicians, you might expect wall-to-wall classic tunes, but most of the music featured in the film comes from Indian musicians rather than The Beatles themselves. Nevertheless, the sound quality is pristine and fills the room in a wonderful way. With this being such an interview showcase with talking heads aplenty, it is nice to note that dialogue comes through flawlessly in the center channel. The archival clips do not feature much in the way of age-related wear, thankfully, but you can tell there were some limitations to recording in certain situations. The surround channel presentation is not pushed to the limits, but it sounds terrific here. There are optional English subtitles provided on this release.

Special Features

Final Thoughts

The Beatles and India is an immensely entertaining documentary detailing a unique period of time in the career of one of the greatest bands of all time. Hardcore fans of the group may already know quite a bit about this period, but even they should find a lot of value in the unique archival footage and the larger context you get from the interview subjects. If you are completely fresh to this information, get ready for a different side of the Fab Four which more clearly defined what exactly mattered to each of them at this point in their lives. MVD Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray featuring a strong A/V presentation and a nice array of additional material. If you are a Beatles fan, you are going to have a lot of fun. Recommended

The Beatles and India is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: MVD Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.

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'The Beatles And India' Blu-Ray Review - A Look At The Fab Four's Quest For Enlightenment & Creativity - Geek Vibes Nation