Blu-ray Review: Magische Momente (Magical Moments – the time of the Silver Arrows)

Mercedes’ 2014 constructors’ and Lewis’ drivers championship look like setting up a new era of Mercedes Silver Arrows dominance. Co-incidentally, I received for Xmas, Magische Momente which is a 3 disc blu-ray disc documentary that traces the origins of the Silver Arrows era right up to their retirement from grand prix racing in 1955.

Magische Momente contains 10 episodes with over a massive 500+ minutes of viewing.

Each episode covers the team and personnel via period acting re-creating the drama of the various team personalities like Dr Ferdinand Porsche, the legendary team boss Alfred Neubauer and the roster of big name drivers who raced for the team – Caracciola, Rosemeyer, Fangio, Moss, Lang, etc.

In between there are interviews with Jackie Stewart and Jochen Mass who take various  cars out for a spin on the track and at collector festivals like Goodwood. Also there is archival race film and these are used throughout to follow the races during each season including the W25, W125, W196 and the sports cars.

The blu-ray HD video is good during footage of the vintage Silver Arrows race car test drives and the re-enactment scenes. Just don’t expect the old archival film of the actual race footage to be restored or better – they are still in their original 4:3 aspect ratio in grainy B&W format.

I have to admit that I find the drama re-enactment throughout the videos to be a little excessive. I’m probably old fashioned in prefering F1 documentaries with old footage narrated by journalists with interviews with former drivers.

The Blu-ray features an English or German soundtrack but no subtitles (so no luck, if you are hard of hearing).

Magisch Momente retails for €59 and while it isn’t a steelbook blu-ray, it does comes in a nice slip case.

Overall, there is over 6 hours of viewing – the drama distracts a little bit, but there aren’t too many documentaries of the Mercedes Grand Prix era that includes so much content.