Heimat: Eine Chronik in elf Teilen

Absolutely, I agree with my previous commentator in describing this as a riveting,fascinating and certainly beautiful film. It's not necessary to see all the episodes,since the first ones are the best,while the last ones are a-bit tiresome,but for any person who likes German's and their good-natured ways,all episodes are worth seeing.In typical german fashion, values are constantly questioned,even it's murderous Nazi past is confronted in the last episodes, the rich dialogues are particularly interesting. These episodes are recommended for anyone who is about to live or travel in Germany,preferably in original language!!

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.

Seeing this film, or rather set of films, in my early teens irrevocably changed my idea of the possibilities of human interaction and the range of potential experience. This monumental exploration of individuals, and their historical setting, reveals how full bodied and intense every human existence is. The people are portrayed as they are to themselves: their experiences of the smallest to the largest internal and external phenomena are detailed with the greatest of artistry and perception. Edgar Reitz displays a fabulous appreciation of human motivations and longings.

When these phenomena are set against the immense time allowed by the length of the work, one cannot help but apprehend the force and vivacity of happiness, defeat, lust, love, sadness, melancholy, that each person feels. When I saw these films I perceived my future experiences, how my life would inevitably twist and oscillate due to both intended and accidental events. I acquired a feeling of the longevity of being and what it meant to reflect upon past lives, memories and contexts. A masterpiece and a revelation. I only wish the BBC would screen it again.

If anyone knows where I can get a copy, could they contact me

Recounting the lives of the inhabitants of a German village from 1919 to 1982, Edgar Reitz's epic miniseries Heimat- A Chronicle of Germany is a stunning showcase of film-making at its finest, a fifteen-hour masterpiece, unequaled in European cinema.

The story begins with Paul Simon's return to Schabbach, the village where he was born, at the end of World War I. The conflict has left its marks on him, but no one notices this until it's too late: the first episode ends with Paul leaving Schabbach in 1928, without telling anyone.

We will subsequently learn he has become a successful businessman in America, although this aspect of the plot is covered sparingly, the director being more interested in the Scabbach community, where life revolves around Paul's wife, Maria (Marita Breuer). She is the heart and soul of these eleven episodes, watching her sons grow up, her in-laws get old and the world change radically: over the course of fifty-four years, she will witness war, poverty, family crises and much more, always trying to remain calm and controlled.

Reitz's brilliance lies partly in the story he tells (the history of an entire nation seen through the eyes of common people), but most of all in the means he employs to tell it: on the surface, Heimat looks like an ordinary TV miniseries, but in fact the director delivers a fifteen-hour art-house film, as testified by the techniques used to bring the story to life: what mainstream television product would feature so many black and white/color transitions (dictated by emotional reasons, rather than narrative), ambiguous characters (especially Maria, whose increasingly cold behavior has a devastating effect on her son Hermann, as we will see in Heimat 2), unconventional themes (adultery and sexual initiation were still taboos on the small screen in 1984) and bizarre fantasy sequences (one might even be entitled to think Reitz began the TV revolution given US form by David Lynch's work on Twin Peaks)? And let's not forget the unreliable narrator (every episode is introduced by Glasisch, the village fool), who makes the viewer unable to interpret the Heimat cycle in only one way. I also have to point out that the title is ironic: the people portrayed in these episodes struggle to find a home-country (that's what "heimat" means, although the translation doesn't fully live up to the significance that word has in German), but are destined to fail on one level or another: they can only find a temporary home, which will eventually vanish along with them.

For all the reasons listed above, Heimat deserves to be seen: those wondering if there still is a difference (in terms of quality, if not even success) between big and small screen really ought to give this intense opus a look.