Peter Brook‘s five-hour-plus film adaptation of “The Mahabharata” is set for a BFI Blu-ray release on Aug. 10, presented in high definition from a new 4K restoration of the 1989 production.
The release centres on the triptych version of the film, running 332 minutes, which sits between Brook’s three-hour cinema cut and the six-hour television version he shot concurrently. Based on the ancient Hindu epic, the film was originally produced by Brook with screenwriters Jean-Claude Carrière and Marie-Hélène Estienne, and features an international cast drawn from 16 nationalities.
A key addition to the disc is “My Father’s Legacy – Simon Brook on The Mahabharata,” a newly filmed 35-minute interview in which the director’s son reflects on his memories of the production, its cultural significance and his father’s legacy. Simon Brook also led the technical restoration of the film, which had largely disappeared from circulation after the original 35mm prints were lost. Working without an inventory, the team recovered camera negative for approximately 95% of the film from 3,451 scattered reels of negative and sound elements. The original scan was performed at 8K resolution – what Brook has described as a first for a European heritage film – generating 450 terabytes of data before being finished for the Blu-ray presentation.
“My father believed ‘The Mahabharata’ belonged to everyone and remains particularly relevant,” Simon Brook told Variety. “This Blu-ray release ensures that audiences can continue discovering it for generations to come.”
The two-disc set also includes “Making the Mahabharata,” a 55-minute documentary from 1989 in which Brook, Carrière and cast members discuss the production, and “Brook by Brook,” a 70-minute portrait of the director made in 2002 by his son. A 1934 travelogue, “Pageant of the Sun-god,” documenting a celebration of the Maharana of Udaipur, is also included, along with a trailer.
First-pressing copies will ship with an illustrated booklet containing new essays by Ravi Jain and Miriam Fernandes of the Why Not Theatre and actor Georges Corraface, archive pieces by Carrière and Peter Brook, and restoration notes by Simon Brook.
Peter Brook, who died in 2022 at the age of 97, developed “The Mahabharata” from a nine-hour stage production created with Carrière. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 1989, where it drew a standing ovation. The restored version returned to Venice in 2024. It has had a global festival run since then and is currently touring the U.K. under the aegis of the London Indian Film Festival.
Leave a Reply