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UK Holidays - Michael Palin - Sahara
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List Price: $34.98
Our Price: $26.99
Your Save: $ 7.99 ( 23% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: BBC Warner
Starring: Michael Palin
Directed By: John-Paul Davidson, Roger Mills
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0794051249623
Format: Closed-captioned
Label: BBC Warner
Manufacturer: BBC Warner
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: BBC Warner
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2006-04-18
Running Time: 236
Studio: BBC Warner
Theatrical Release Date: 2003-04-06
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Editorial Reviews:
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Michael Palin's Sahara adventure is one of the great challenges in world travel. In this exhausting journey, Michael will pass through the rock of Gibraltar to Morocco, Mauritania, Mali and beyond. His route will take him across sand-seas, along treacherous rivers, through oases and over mountain ranges. The remote regions are characterized by ceaseless travel, from camel caravans to car rallies, but Michael Palin's love of traveling takes you to places many people will never know. DVD Features:
Deleted Scenes
Interviews
Other
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Sahara
Comment: Once again the superb ex-Monty Python turned globetrotting national British icon Michael Palin invites us all to join him on his journeys around the world. This time the destination is the biggest desert in the world, the Sahara, and its surrounding countries.
As usual the witty and insightful narration of Mr. Palin, as well as his encounters with local people and ex-pats from around the world makes for an interesting and inspiring series about this very inhospitable yet beautiful and little understood place. If nothing else, the series gives food for thought about how people live their lives in other parts of the world. At least it did for me.
I will admit that "Sahara" is not the best of Michael Palins travels. There is a quality or feel about it that just doesn't really make you feel the same elation you normally would, watching Palins programmes. This is not to say that "Sahara" is bad television. By no means. Not being the best doesn't mean that it's bad. Perhaps it has to do with the sameness of the places he travels to in this series. There is little but sand, which maybe in some way makes it less fascinating. I don't know.
As usual with the Palin travel DVDs there are a plethora of extra material in the form of clips that didn't make the final cut. a video diary, and of course an interview with Michael Palin.
Not the best, but still very, very good. Highly recommended.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Sahara
Comment: An excellent series. I would have given it 5 stars, but it didn't quite measure up to the very high standard set by Around the World in 80 Days. I have already pre-ordered Michael Palin - Pole to Pole and am eagerly awaiting its delivery.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Inspiration? Michael Palin
Comment: Tragically, it is not easy to get access to BBC shows in the USA. There are some truly great series, for example all the travel series done by Michael Palin (some more amazing than others, but all very good). You might recognize him from his days as a star in Monty Python or from the film "A Fish Called Wanda." Part of what makes him a great travel series host is that he retains his humor while exploring extremely fascinating parts of the globe. His series are very balanced, informative, and entertaining all at the same time.
The most refreshing thing about his series is that they are not presented as "look at all these great touristic places I have been," but rather the camera is more of a silent witness to his adventures. It really just follows him as he sets out to do his carefully researched itineraries ("Around the World in 80 Days," "Pole to Pole," "Full Circle," "Sahara," "Himalaya") or themes ("Hemingway Adventure," "Palin's New Europe"). His style is both objective and subjective. Whilst retaining a journalistic like objectivity he also lets you know how he subjectively feels about the places he visits and about how he personally feels in regards to his personal health both physically and psychologically: he shares his apprehensions, feelings of triumph or defeat, relief or disparity, amazement and disappointments, mourning or elation or even neutrality, sickness and homesickness or feelings of health; in other words, his style is to bring the richness of a written travelogue to film. You get the feeling that you are watching his diary; for example, when he does his post trip/editing room voice-overs and other commentary, he adds his comments from it.
You see him get altitude sickness in the Himalayas ("Himalaya"), and you see him participate in a bizarre yet hilarious crossing-the-international-date-line ritual performed by the ship crew on his way from Japan to the USA (in "Around the World in 80 Days.") Moreover, the trips have quite large budgets so there really is no limit to what kind of itinerary he can dream up. In "Around the World in 80 Days" he set out to literally circumnavigate the globe, but not just in a ship, he uses any means of ground transportation he can find, which includes joining ship barges. The one stipulation is no air transportation. In other series his itineraries are equally as grand: in "Full Circle" he makes a trip around the Pacific Rim and has the unique privilege of hiring a helicopter to see some difficult to get to parts of far eastern Russia and after, true to Palin style, learns Russian drinking songs from the pilot while drinking vodka with him; in "Pole to Pole" he takes the only commercial plane that flies from South America to the South Pole, a ticket that is prohibitively expensive for your average traveller.
It was very easy for me to get addicted to Michael Palin's series and I had the fortune of living in China where bootlegs of anything are easy to come by when I did. In the USA, his shows are difficult to come by. I know that the complete box set of all the series he has done so far (he has at least one or two more left in him) is sold at a bargain price in the UK. But for people living in the USA who cannot stand the fact that those DVDs are (probably) regioned to the effect that they will not even work on our DVD players here even when legitimately purchased and imported to the USA, perhaps the best alternative is to turn to the internet (cough, torrents, cough).
FYI The BBC shop in the UK sells a 16 disc box set with all his travel series he has ever done for 40 pounds (about 80 dollars). It is so outrageous that DVDs are region coded so that they can price discriminate against the American audience.
Customer Rating:
Summary: BRAVO - MAGNIFICO
Comment: BRAVO - MAGNIFICO!
Michael Palin has done it again; taken a trip and brought his fans another video travel masterpiece!
See what it's like, or at least similar to, backpacking through a vast and intriguing country, the Sahara Region, with a few side trips to cities, yes! I said cities, and a few tourist sites; Micheal Palin seems to prefer checking out what life is really like in these far-off places.
Michael Palin does not march from one traditional tourist trap to another: that's what makes his travel videos so great! Very little time is spent at the regular tourist sites.
Michael Palin's best laid plans are not alway's realized, and that's just another plus: hey, sometimes one must adapt; little or big, unexpected experiences can be fun!
All of Micheal Palin's previous travel tapes are FANTASTIC, and now we have Micheal Palin's "Sahara."
For those who have never seen a Micheal Palin travel video, I recommend buying them all (1.Around The World In Eighty Days; 2.Pole To Pole; 3. Full Circle; 4. Himalaya; and 5. Sahara) then sit back and enjoy the expertly filmed travels of this one-of-a kind explorer/traveler. For those of you who thirst for entertainment, I've led you to water, whether or not you drink is up to you.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Michael's Sahara made me homesick:)
Comment: I had the great priviledge to see Michael Palin's Sahara on the (real)BBC in Oxford (England) in 2002 with an Algerian friend. Unfortunately the BBC showed the production in the wee small hours ---but staying up all night was well worth loosding a little sleep. (Now, having recently purchased the DVD, I've had another grand experience with Michael as my guide.)
We were greatly pleased to see that Palin chose to go into Algeria, despite the dire warnings about the dangerous conditions (due to the great unrest and genocide occuring at that particular time) because it is truly a beautiful country-land of contrasts! We enjoyed taking a trek through the Ahaggar region (Palin refers to it in English as the Hoggar), hearing that, despite what is said in the press, the Sahroui refugees were not kept in Tindouf against their will and were treated well by the Algerian government, and the mini-stroll through the Casbah in center Alger (Algiers in English) was a delight-if too brief. Oran (pronounced 'Waahran'-say it slowly and do pronunce the 'h'!) has an enviable spot on the beautiful hilly coastline above the even more beautiful Mediterranean. We were delighted to hear the journalist who accompanied Palin in the Casbah say-typically Algerian-'inch'Allah'with reference to a possible future event. We were sorry that Michael did not venture a little south of Alger to visit Algeria's vast array of Roman ruins, and isntead chose Libya for this. Bravo to Michael for showing the rest of the world at least a glimpse of our beloved Algeria. Be cooled by the oasis outside Hassi Messaoud -a breath of fresh air!
The funniest statement of the film was when Palin alluded to the "longest bus ride" he'd ever taken when going accross the falt and palid Libyan desert.
The journey Palin took with the touaregs is spectacular. Myriads of camels, a ton of dunes and sand, and the comraderie of the berbers of the desert. Be sure to look for the baby dorcas gazelle!
From England to Gibralter (where the Barbary baboons hobnob with the gentry) thorugh the vast and breathtaking Sahara (of which Alogeria calims mmore than a lions-or is that camel's?-share, with glimpses of all the countries which share this most wonderful of all deserts. Meet the inahabitants along the way. You will have a wonderful surprise, and perhaps learn that people are people no matter where they call home.
As Palin says, "See what is similar, not what is different" of these people.
Enjoy your journey in this enchanted place!
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