Popular reviews

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  Review by NihilBaxter ★★★★★ 27

  So to me, this is it: the crowning achievement of German cinema. I know that's a bold statement and I'm not pretending to have seen all relevant works to make said statement but to me, this is it. And this review is supposed to explain why because that's not the easiest feat.
  "Heimat" is tough to sell to people even if they're cinephiles and German. And it's easy to see why: It's a story about a fictional family in a fictional village in the rural German region of the Hunsrück, it takes place over more than 60 years, it's longer than 15 hours and also it's mostly performed in a dialect that not every German person will even understand. So…

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  Review by Thorkell August Ottarsson ★★★★½ 2

  Mission accomplished! It took 3 days but it was worth it. Wonderful film in 11 parts. If someone feels like almost 16 hours is to long then they should at least watch part 9. One of the greatest thing I have ever seen. I loved that the story teller is a guy no one cares about and one everyone forgets. He however remembers the people and the stories. Now I want to watch Heimat 2 but first something short, like Lawrence of Arabia ;)

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  Review by V. Lepistö ★★★★★ 3

  I started watching Edgar Reitz' epic series at the beginning of the year, perhaps couple of weeks in. And during that journey it filled my life like the best television series' do. But it doesn't feel like a television series, it feels more like an epic saga of an film and perhaps that is the reason why it is usually considered to be so. It covers almost the whole 20th century of German history starting from the end of the world war one as young Paul Simon returns to his village from the war.

  First of all, I couldn't have prepared at all. I mean, how does one prepare to a family chronicle lasting 15 hours and 24 minutes? How…

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  Review by Michael Stuhlman ★★★★★

  It took me quite some time to get through the full series, but now looking back on it, it's probably one of the greatest films of all time. Following a family for decades in Germany, we come to feel like apart of the families trials and tribulations. From loss, to war, to redemption, to success and to death. Seeing the family grow and evolve is one of the most singularly rewarding experiences in my time watching film. It's not an easy one to track down, but if you have the time and patience I urge you to find and watch this epic masterpiece.

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  Review by Neal Miller ★★★★½

  At 15 plus hours, this was a considerable undertaking, but ultimately a rewarding one. The narrative format is intricate and clever, managing to be both epic in historical scope and intimate in focusing on the story of this one family in this one town. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and found parts of it rather moving.

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  Review by cascione ★★★★★ 2

  Primo episodio visto il 27 dicembre 2020, ultimo episodio visto il 21 febbraio 2021.

  Opera magniloquente, molto più di una serie televisiva, molto più di un film in 11 episodi. Capolavoro assoluto a ogni livello: narrativo, formale, estetico. Non è un caso che per ogni saga familiare che si intrecci con un periodo storico di una nazione si faccia riferimento a Heimat. Questo tedesco, però, è qualcosa che va oltre. C'è la Storia, quella con la s maiuscola, e ci sono mille storie, quelle personali di un nucleo familiare dal 1920 ai primi anni '80. Gli eventi importanti vengono però filtrati nella quotidianità dei personaggi, nella vita di un borgo contadino dove arrivano la guerra, il progresso, gli scontri generazionali…

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  Review by King Kongo ★★★★★ 1

  Heimat - ein Begriff der in den verschiedenen letzten Jahrzehnten für die Deutschen in seiner Bedeutung durch manche Veränderung gegangen ist. Vom Heimatstolz zur Heimatschuld zur Heimatpflicht zur Heimatverachtung zur Neo-Heimat-Romantik und so weiter und so weiter. Und während heute genau diese Neo-Heimat-Romantik in Form von idyllischen Bio-Hofläden über das schmerzhafte Trauma der eigenen deutschen Identität hinweg helfen sollen, vermittelt Edgar Reitz mit diesem fast 1000-minütigen Mammutwerk etwas, was viel wichtiger ist: ein Gefühl von Verständnis gegenüber der eigenen Identität.
  Dabei arbeitet Reitz in 'Heimat' nicht psychoanalytisch, er ist kein Deuter der Geschichte, sondern bleibt Beobachter. Beobachter eines Ortes, seiner Ereignisse und Figuren, sowie des Zeitgeschehens an sich. Und das ist völlig ausreichend. Sein Fokus liegt eindeutig auf den Details…

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  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★★★ 2

  Eighty odd years of German village life told across almost sixteen hours?

  Wunderbar!

  Granted some of my interest waxed and waned a little (try as I might, I couldn't get as invested in 'Little Hermann' as I did with so many chapters of the previous generation - it's a big ask of your audience to suddenly shift focus when you're almost onto the last lap, and I didn't like how it skipped over so many years, robbing pivotal characters of their exit) but this is a fine televisual achievement. I got a touch of goosebumps towards the end of the final episode when the ghosts of the past gathered together once more and I liked that the non appearance of…

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  Review by Reto Hochstrasser ★★★★½ 1

  This is absolutely monumental! What a gigantic undertaking. I see Reitz's HEIMAT up there with Leone's Once Upon a Time in America and Bergman's Fanny & Alexander - all of which were written around the same time. And I certainly think it's better than Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz.
  I watched the series over five weeks. Of course it's not always absolutely brilliant - but the camera, actors, masks and settings are always great. Famous ending that reminded me of Fellini and Fosse.

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  Review by jrhovind ★★★★

  Sixty-three years of German history as it happens to one family over the course of nearly sixteen sprawling but always intimate hours. The rather disquieting idea that momentous and disastrous history can be unfolding all around you, but until it comes to your door, you still just go about your life as if everything's normal. The Simon family, of course, isn’t immune from the First World War’s economic fallout, or the slow, insidious rise of Nazism; but even as the unthinkable encroaches on their pastoral corner of the Rhineland, there’s still plenty of time to go to the movies and stay up late getting drunk with your sister-in-law and making potato cakes. “Living on credit,” the family’s matriarch sighs of…

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  Review by Sascha Nolte ★★★★★

  Reitz’ erster Teil seines Magnus Opus, dem er über die Jahrzehnte immer neue Geschichten hinzugefügte, kann man getrost zum Besten rechnen, was je über deutsche Fernsehschirme flimmern durfte. Fünfzehneinhalb Stunden lang verfolgt man gebannt die Geschichte der hunsrücker Familie Simon, ihrer Leben und Lieben, ihrer Erfolge und Fehlschläge. Nur wenig Menschliches wird ausgespart, und so ergibt sich eine ausschweifende deutsche Sittengeschichte, welche hier kurz nach dem ersten Weltkrieg beginnt und einige Jahre vor dem Mauerfall endet. Ein Meisterwerk der deutschen TV-Geschichte!

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  Review by Ali ★★★★★

  عمل ملحمي بأمتياز من "إدغار ريتز" يقدم خلاله منظوراً تاريخياً تم تجاهلة في كثير من الأعمال عن معاناة الألمان نفسهم نتيجة نظام هتلر وما بعد هتلر عوضاً عن الصورة النمطية المستوردة من هوليوود والتي غالباً ما تركز على السلطة السياسية متجاهلة الشعب ، ريتز ومن خلال هذا العمل (الرائع) الذي أستغرق تصويرة 5 سنوات و يمتد لـ 16 ساعة يسرد حكاية عائلة صغيرة في قرية شاباخ على مدار عقود من الزمن منذ عام 1919م وحتى 1982م يعايشون خلالها أكثر اللحظات المثيرة و الحاسمة في تاريخ المانيا الحديث من رخاء أقتصادي وسلم و حرب و دمار .