Edgar Reitz doesn’t like the idea of his Heimat trilogy being described as a serial or a soap opera. He prefers to view it as three single films that just happen to run for a combined total of 3,136 minutes. But, like Dickens and Proust before him, Reitz has succeeded in producing an immense chronicle of his times with the saga of the Simon family, which transports viewers from the end of the Great War to the dawn of the new millennium. It's a truly epic experience now fully available to be enjoyed on DVD.
Heimat (1984) concentrates on Maria Simon, a hausfrau in the Rhineland village of Schabbach, whose three very different sons are shaped by the rise and fall of Nazism. The story of the youngest, Hermann, dominates both Heimat II (1992) - in which he becomes a composer after studying in 1960s Munich - and the superb Heimat III (2004), in which he and long-lost love Clarissa attempt to make a new life for themselves against the backdrop of German reunification.
What's so remarkable about the films is the way in which Reitz juggles numerous plotlines without resorting to melodrama or caricature. He also keeps it simple, by focussing on events and emotions that are familiar to us all. Consequently, we're able to identify with the passions, ambitions, frustrations, triumphs and regrets that are enacted with credibility and restraint by an exceptional cast, whose natural performances draw you in to the key social, political and cultural issues that impacted across the entire continent.
Heimat I-III is a monumental achievement and will long remain a cinematic landmark.
''An Introduction To Heimat 3' book by David Parkinson
Film Description
The third part of Edgar Reitz's Heimat trilogy and the chronicle of a decisive decade in Germany's history, taking the story from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the eve of the new millenium.
