Huit heures ne font pas un jour

Created and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder as a family series for WDR of Germany, this was my first experience with Fassbinders work and while perhaps not exactly representative of his normal subject matter, I think that makes it a perfect first impression. Centring around a small family in Cologne, Germany, we primarily follow couple Jochen (Gottfried John) and Marion (Hanna Schygulla), a tool factory worker and a newspaper office advertiser who fall in love at first sight. Over 5 near film-length episodes we expand to the rest of each's families, their coworkers and friends, getting a glimpse into life in working class Germany at the time. The plot loosely covers Jochen as he tries to improve his workplace, however falls to the backdrop as each episode themes around two different couples from the group. The acting is fantastic, as is the writing, and the relationship dynamics between all was perfect, even those relationships I hated. The series doesn't shy away from difficult topics, so content warning around spousal abuse, as it navigates the many relationships, troubles, and triumphs throughout. All the cast was great; Gottfried John, what a face, and Grandma played by Luise Ullrich quickly became the fan favourite. The directing of course is phenomenal, with many shots blocked like a Baroque painting. The way Fassbinder sets up his scenes is honestly a masterclass in itself. He also has this quirk of always starting a scene with a zoom shot, and ending with another pan zoom off to some random object in the background, which was consistent if not interesting choices. I personally really enjoyed his quirks, in both writing and directing. If you like family dramas, especially those that make you feel and think, I could not recommend this one more, probably the best I've seen in a good while. Highly recommend.

The characters are: Jochen, a worker in a toolmaking factory, his girlfriend Marion, his parents and his grandmother Oma = Granny in German (Oma does not seem old enough to be Jochen's grandmother). Other characters: Monika, Jochen's sister, married to petty tyrant Harald, Oma's new partner Gregor and Irmgard, who works with Marion in a newspaper ad office.

There is some good material here, such as a realistic description of Jochen's factory, with power plays that pit the workers against management and occasionally against each other. Some of these are the improvement of a production line with scarce financial benefit to the workers and the election of a foreman and relocation of the factory against their will. The relationship between Jochen and Marion is depicted warmly and realistically, without excess sentimentality. Unfortunately, there are also cliches, mostly in happenings involving Oma. Her hoodwinking of a park keeper requires an otherworldly naiveté from the latter, and we are asked to believe that children prefer being "educated" in an improvised, crowded nursery/kindergarten rather than playing on the street or in a park. There are some contrived scenes. such as a group of children hemmed in by four cars at an intersection, or that of the second grandmother in Episode 3. Some characters like Harald and Marion's brother are mostly built from cliches.

On the positive side acting is excellent all around (with special mention for Hanna Schygulla) and the lush, color saturated cinematography by Dietrich Lohmann suits the action and the emotional temperature..

All in all, an irregular miniseries that has good moments but shows the seal of mass production and "goes Hollywood" a few times. It may not justify eight hours of your time.

What a shock. A mini-series from Fassbinder with many of his usual acting troupe but no murders, no sexual deviance, no head cases, no over the top acting, no cruelty. In fact, it's quite a happy and positive series that shows how people can come together and overcome problems at work and home. Yes, there's a racist in the factory and a nasty father who slaps his kid but they get put in their place and goodness prevails. It's a commitment, about 8 hours altogether. But worth it for the look at working class people in West Germany in the early 70s. Lots of smoking and drinking. Lots of ugly 70s fashion. But Grandma knows best and the guys at the factory will figure a way to get their rights without a strike. A pleasant surprise.

Me and my brother used to watch this series when it was shown in Sweden back in the 70s. Especially we were very fond of lead actor Gottfried John, who's laid back, easy going style really made an impression to us as a role model. The series is about the family situations and the situation at work. How does an ordinary day of life go by in Germany? It starts of when Jochen (played by Gottfried) makes an improvement to the the machine he is working on at the factory which helps to speed up the production process. The drawback , however is that now fewer employees is needed to run the machines. He starts of as an rather unpopular workmate.

Also there was Hanna Schygulla who is a top actress who starred in many of Fassbinders films. I would really like to get my hands on the series on DVD because it's not only charming but also a great landmark of contemporary television because of its documentary drama style.

This is one of Fassbinder's most charming and, as someone else wrote here, positive series/films. While there are some dark moments, they are relatively few compared to his other work, and there are some downright lovely moments in the series. The main romance between Gottfried John and Hanna Schygulla is sweet and charming, and the tribulations of the workers are realistically done without being boring. There are lovely moments throughout, and you don't feel like you're being manipulated like you might in a Hollywood series. Fun fact about this series is that it's only five episodes. It was originally supposed to be eight, but the German government cut the funding due to resentments about the "controversial" Fassbinder. Ironically, the series ended up being 8 hours anyway. This was also Fassbinder's first series. He had made around 6 films or so at that point, and he wanted to get into TV because that's where most of the audience was in the 1970's. They were watching TV in West Germany instead of going to the pictures. Fassbinder knew the audiences for his films were enthusiastic but very small. He wanted a wider audience. TV was not looked down upon in 1970's Europe like it was in the US at the time, so many directors went there to make series.

This is a wonderful, charming series, and one of Fassbinder's most underrated and underappreciated shows.