Apocalypse - La seconda guerra mondiale

A documentary series on World War 2, from its earliest origins to Japan's surrender and covering the major battles, events and turning points.

An excellent documentary series on WW2. At only six episodes and 4½ hours, a fairly concise telling. However, the main events and takeaways are in there, making it quite edifying for someone who knows very little about the history of WW2.

Even for us with extensive WW2 knowledge it's well worth the watch. There's some very rare footage - quite a lot of stuff I'd never seen before and in some cases so seemingly unobtainable I'm surprised it exists. All this has in many cases been colourised and the resolution sharpened, making for quite an engaging experience.

Not the best documentary on WW2 though. That honour goes to the World at War, the 1973-74 series narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier. Much more detailed and complete, it covers just about every aspect of WW2, including areas that you wouldn't usually think about but that, ultimately, are no less important than the main events.

Apocalypse: WW2 suffers due to its compactness, skimming over some important events and missing some entirely. There's also an element of oversimplification and even outright inaccuracy at times to suit a narrative or to keep things quick and simple. Thankfully, cases of these are quite limited.

As an introduction to the history of WW2 though, it can't be beaten. Watch this first then move onto The World at War for the more detailed history.

The high resolution film scans look great. They are the main attraction here so be sure to watch it in HD. The colorizing is good too, making the footage more powerful for today's audience, although I can imagine that future improvements will eventually make it look dated.

The script repeats an old error about the Polish cavalry units in Ep. 1. A brief clip of men charging with sabers drawn is narrated "The Polish cavalry charges the German tanks, and is slaughtered." This is nonsense and insulting. World War I taught every cavalry officer that cavalry charges were a thing of the past. Polish cavalry c.1939 were not classic cavalry. The were highly mobile infantry units which used horses to move but then fought dismounted. They were highly effective in that role.

Maybe the story is not 100% complete, and maybe it gets a little confusing because so many things happen simultaneously throughout the world, so it's understandable that they didn't cover every single aspect and that it's a little too much "French biased", after all it is a French documentary. For example they didn't cover the Balkans at all, and there was one of the most complicated situations in the whole WW2. Maybe not the most important, but certainly interesting, especially in Yugoslavia, where there was in effect a three-way civil war under Nazi occupation, between royalists, communists and quislings going on simultaneously with the armed resistance to Nazis. So that in itself is a situation that would require it's own documentary, and I can see that the authors maybe did not wan't to get into explaining those difficult circumstances when it may take too much time. But the sheer amount of film material shown, that I've never seen before, is astonishing to say the least. I watched every episode eyes wide open. And it's that WW2 video material itself that makes this documentary worth having in one's collection.

This series followed "Apocalypse: Hitler", and explains with sometimes very crude and brutal images, the events of World War II.

Narrated by Mathieu Kassovitz in French, it truly brings the war up to its exploits and its horrors. Some excerpts were shot by American directors John Ford and John Huston, right on the spot.

Thus maybe one flaw was the fact that it showed mostly the war on the European front, Hitler's wanting to rule the world, the Soviets fighting back with strong forces. Only the fourth episode shows the Pacific War with the Japanese using "Bushido" to stand up to its enemies, mostly the Americans. It took atomic bombs to end it all...

And in Europe, the crush on three sides: the Normandy Raid, the African defeats and the Soviet eastern push did end Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy dominations.

This is a documentary not to be missed. Warning: some images can be disturbing...

I recently viewed this 6 part series on WWII and I was literally captivated. It aired on TV5 (French speaking network) twice and I finally managed to view all 6 episodes. The war is explained in detail with actual footage filmed by all sides in the conflict. The films are enhanced (coloured) and restored making them even more actual. The conflicts In North Africa, in the Pacific and in Europe are all explained with maps and troop movements. The hardship and suffering of the populations and soldiers are seen and felt by the viewer.

From the beginning of the German-Russian Nonaggression Pact to the surrender of Japan, all steps of the war are explained and shown with unbelievable detail. The complete DVD set is available but only in Europe for Zone 2 and Pal TV. However I think it should be made available everywhere, and all school children old enough to understand, should be shown this documentary.