"Heimat" is a 1984 TV series of 11 episodes showing the small town of Shabbach, in the Hunsruck (near Koblenz), documenting the life of a large farm family. It begins with the defeated, hard years from 1919, emerging into the turbulent 1920's, solidifying into the National Socialist regime in 1933. A good amount of the story takes place during the 12-year Reich, since the war and all the material improvements make such a big change in people's lives. It carries on to the prosperous 1950's, rebellious 60's and 70's, with a funeral in 1982 reuniting all the branches of the family.
"Heimat" is a word which does not translate well into English, especially into modern, mobile, multi-kulti USA. It refers to a yearning for one's past, one's kinsfolk, one's home and turf and fireplace, one's traditions - much as Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof" loves Anatevka, despite its dirt and poverty, for tradition's sake.
Edgar Reitz, born 1932, is the writer and director, raised in a village like Shabbach, son of a carpenter who should have had few ambitions but to carry on his father's life. He was raised CAtholic, a rarity in Germany's film world or in the Western film world at all. He was having a very hard time in 1982, lost all his money on one film venture, so he stayed on the lower-middle-class holiday island, Sylt, with friends. A snow storm locked them all in for weeks. He found that his bankruptcy, the snowstorm, his middle-aged crisis and his longing for childhood security and values sent him into a reverie (like Proust). Feverishly, he wrote and wrote for days, recreating the people of his youth, their ways of speech and strong dialect, their petty rivalries and arguments, their everyday food and clothing.
The result of this was the script that became "Heimat", a series hotly debated when it aired in 1984. His film technique was to recreate the memory of people, as individuals, through time, with its peaks and troughs and grey, dull areas. He illustrated this phenomenon of memory by filming mostly in black and white, with color coming onscreen only when the memory was particularly vivid and exciting. For example, the family is sitting inside its big kitchen before the war when they hear a plane, low and loud, overhead. They run out, to see roses falling in brilliant red colors, from the plane above. It's their teenage son, Anton, who has had the honor of receiving a pilot's training, and who took the risk of flying off course during training to see his family. Thus, only for a few minutes do we see the color - of his plane and roses.
I thought this technique very representative of real memory, tricks of the mind that delete the undesirable parts, fade out the dull parts, and accentuate the great ones. Edgar Reitz produced "Heimat" after the "Holocaust" series from USA had aired in the late 70's in Germany. Germans were by the 1970's well aware of their parents' role in the war, and their country's guilt as a whole. Yet for many Germans, there was a resentment that foreigners were usurping their own country's memories, or rather, portraying only certain selected memories.
Reitz did not set out to make a film that many American reviewers called "Germany's answer to the 'Holocaust'". He wanted to try to understand who he was, where he'd really come from, why he had turned away from his father's life, why he'd risk so much to take up filmmaking, so notoriously unstable. The film aired on PBS through Boston about 11:00 pm, so few Americans did see it. Many Americans do not tolerate subtitles well, so gave up on it if they chanced upon it.
Now this series and its sequel "HEIMAT II" are available on video in public libraries, oddball video shops, and soon on DVD. For those interested in the past, specifically the causes of war and Germany's role in it, this film is extremely realistic and engaging.
One feels drawn in immediately to the large family, with Maria Simon, a young farmwoman, as the main thread through all the eleven episodes. She was a young wife in 1919 with two sons who'd been mysteriously abandoned by her husband. He walked out one day without a word. She stayed on, with no formal employment, simply living with her parents on the farm. The story tells of these boys growing up, how they managed without a father, how electricity and the autobahn came to their town, how their father turned up 12 years later in Detroit, tried to visit during the Nazi period and wasn't allowed off the ship. Their surname, Simon, was a suspected Jewish name. The burden of proof of Aryan descent fell on the family to show no Jewish blood. The town elders dug through all the old records, to no avail. He had to stay on the ship and return. Luckily, the Simons were not suspected again and were left in peace.
Much of the criticism against this series concerns the minimal mention of concentration camps, Jews, gypsies, etc. The film seems to imply that all the homefront families were innocent, unaware, uninformed. In fact, if one listens closely to the dialogue, this is not the case. It's brought back by rumor from those who've worked in Berlin, who've fought on the Eastern front, who are involved with various businesses that buy up Jewish properties. Yet, it's discussed in a very hush-hush, shameful way, for instinctively in such a dictatorship, one does not want any repercussions such as jail or a camp - loose lips indeed! It's shocking news and passed eagerly around, yet details cannot be verified. People are upset and stunned, not sure if to believe all that they hear. Children are protected from hearing it, lest they repeat it themselves.
All in all, I found this a very, very engaging series, as if the people were real and you are there with them. You can imagine yourself dealing with the everyday problems, the shock of the new as cars, electricity, phones, phonographs and freeways come in. The young people born after the war become looser, freer and more forthright than any of the older generation had been when young. Although we live in the USA, the film is a true chronicle of life modernizing in our Western nations, with the moral and philosophical consequences that follow.
One son, Hermann Simon, born to a half-Jew during the war (father killed detonating mines) becomes the darling of his mother, Maria. She dreams that he will become a scholar, that he will be the first in the family to ever attend university. All of her efforts go into this boy, yet he feels himself a cuckoo in the nest, that he does not belong in Shabbach with the Simon family, as many b**tard sons might feel. A real tragedy happens in this regard, as the young, musically gifted, and sensitive boy falls in love.
Later, Hermann will become a great composer, but we see him as a 1950's teenager in turmoil for one long, sweet episode. The second Heimat series concerns his rise to musical fame.
I highly recommend this series if you can find it. In San Francisco, you can get it at the Main Library Video Dept.
As for the subtitles - if it's any consolation to you, I found the dialect often so strong, that I had to rely also on the subtitles. I was in Germany in 1984, heard about the series through newspapers and friends, yet never saw it. It was a thrill to find it here in 2003 in San Francisco. It's as widely known and acclaimed there as our "Roots" series was here. (Never saw "Roots" myself - was busy with books in those schooldaze).
Watch for more from Edgar Reitz - I believe that Heimat III is in the making or perhaps finished. His latest will concern the changes in Germany since the wall came down, specifically the integration of East Germans into the West German life.
Edgar Reitz's monumental 11-part series Heimat tells the story of Schabbach, a German village in the Hunruck region, from 1919 to 1982. The story unfo...More at HotMovieSale.com
Heimat: A Chronicle Of Germany - Dvd - Karin Rasenack,gertrud Bredel,eva-maria Schneider,wolfram Wagner,kurt Wagner,karin Kienzler,arno Lang,mathias K...More at Target
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