Bob Marley

I've been known to buy the same Marley album on vinyl, cassette, CD and reissue CD but I was always aware that I was buying the same product. Stations of the Cross doesn't afford consumers that informed choice. This "new" DVD is a re-release of Spiritual Journey (from 2003), although nowhere does it tell you that. It also lacks the 32-page booklet of its earlier iteration. There are some improvements though: this package comes with an audio CD with over an hour of interviews from various sources, though there is no information given as to when or where they took place or who conducted them. Thankfully, there is the added bonus of a DVD menu this time around to help you navigate the documentary. Using archival newsreels and contemporary interviews, the film touches upon many of the normal Marley-related issues, such as religion and ganja, which you would expect. The use of extensive footage and commentary from the superstar's funeral, however, sets it apart from many other films, and you don't have to suffer through Alan Greenberg's cloying Land of Look Behind to see this remarkable event. Critics have slammed it for leaving out material from the Island years, but that's a given for any project that doesn't come with Rita Marley or Chris Blackwell's seal of approval and, really, aren't there enough "authorized" versions of the man's life out there already? The DVD does suffer greatly from the absence of live concert footage, preferring instead to zoom in on concert stills. The DVD's title is also rather cryptic and misplaced, as Rastafarians like Marley typically eschewed Catholic dogma and rituals.