Heimat: A Chronicle of Germany

I spent a year as an exchange student in the Hunrueck area of Germany (where the series opens). I both laughed and cried as I heard the accents and idioms that were used. They have not changed since the early 1900's until my residency there. The outside scenery shots took me back as well. The outside scenes to be back to the Germany that I remember with "Fernweh/Heimweh. I would like to point out one error in the englich subtitles. They make reference to a bucket of "berries" while the spoken word in the audio uses to local idiom "Krombeeren", a.k.a. potatoes. A great series. I am glad that winter is coming so that there will be plenty of nighttime hours to see Heimet 2. Gruess Gott!

Like most other people who saw the series so many years ago,It has remained vividly in my mind,and was a very welcome release on DVD. Although the entire cast were excellent,the performance of Marita Breuer as Maria was outstanding.An amazing, and thoroughly convincing portrayal of the phases of one womans lifetime.With so many strong characters appearing through the story,her magnetism is all the more remarkable. Now we have the wonderful news that HEIMAT 2 will be released in May,with HEIMAT 3 following in August.Can't wait. HEIMAT has to the best piece of sustained drama ever to appear on the small screen.Why can't British TV produce programmes of this calibre? The Singing Detective from the BBC remains the only thing approaching it for quality.

Heimat is one of the best works of art of the twentieth century. Period. That is really all there is to be said. But the format of these comments forces me to write a minimum of ten lines. Well, lets just say that never before in film there has been as successful an amalgam of epic and lyric qualities. The TV-series depict the troubled history of Germany by focusing on a small community and a handful of families. As the show unfolds they become our family. Also: In art the profound and the entertaining seldom go together. In Heimat they do. Be amazed and cry. Still not enough lines. I have nothing more to say. Heimat is the ultimate television masterpiece.

I can only echo the preceding comments: See this film. I would add some ifs, however: See this film if you appreciate good direction, consistently solid acting, and discriminating characterizations; if you savour cultural subtleties; if you find 20th-century European history fascinating; if you think the dynamics of community life have much to tell about the human condition; if you've ever wondered what it meant to be German in the 1920s, '30s, & '40s (although the film covers 1919-1982); if you can't quite understand how Nazism could have gained acceptance and then pre-eminence in a northern German village far removed from Berlin and full of the usual diverse personalities; if you want to put a human face on the monolithic histories about war and propaganda; and if your attention span is longer than that required by the average Hollywood production (the film runs to something like 16 hours, in 9 videocassettes).

Heimat is a superb cinematic chronicle of social and political change in human enterprise, a Bildungsroman of a community. You will not forget it.

You can only appreciate this series if you like the German tradition of very slowly moving, but brilliant novels, like 'the magic mountain' (der Zauberberg) by Thomas Mann. Don't expect any form of action: it's real life, looked at through the eyes of real people, and there's no heroism, just life and the things it does to all of us. I had the habit of watching at least one or two episodes each week in winter, and I think this is the way to enjoy the series; watching the whole thing in - let's say - one week, would ruin it and make it boring. The way music is integrated in the series, and even becomes a theme in the second series, often triggered something; it's like Marcel Proust's 'a la recherche du temps perdu': the emotions shown, the feeling of time moving on and never coming back and history being written without you being able to change a single thing doesn't make you happy, but gives you a mild feeling of accepting things just the way they are.