Heimat

[Hueij]

Did anyone see the German tv series Heimat? I bought the DVD's (19 disks!) last week and now am half way through series 2 (of three). I missed series 3 when it aired here in 1994 but the memory of the first two was enough to make me buy them.

The first series is about this little German village in the middle of nowhere and its people between 1919 and 1982. Just ordinary farmers and self-proclaimed important people witnessing and taking part in "interesting times".

The end of WW1, the economic crisis in the 1920's, the rise of Nazism, WW2, the American occupation, the Wirtschaftswunder and the cultural revolution of the 60's and 70's, seen through the eyes of ordinary people.

Anyone knows what I'm talking about?

[Zkribbler]

Ich spreche Deutche nicht.

[BeBMan]

I remember vaguely that I heard about it. Probably the title deterred me from watching it, since it reminds me on the kitschy genre of 1950ies/1960ies "Heimatfilme" made in Germany, though this tv series is surely different from them.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Yes- I loved it. And not just because it brought rare-but-welcome instalments of women's lady-bits into my adolescence.

[Hueij]

Originally posted by BeBro
I remember vaguely that I heard about it. Probably the title deterred me from watching it, since it reminds me on the kitschy genre of 1950ies/1960ies "Heimatfilme" made in Germany, though this tv series is surely different from them.

You really missed something. This isn't about Heimatfilme (I admit I saw quite a few way back then when all we had on tv was the one Dutch channel and three German channels ) at all.

It is about how history "just" happens when you live through it without even realising it, about normal people being young and full of ideals, growing older and wiser (sadder?) and dying in the end, becoming a memory to the people that came after you.

[Wernazuma III]

Is it like "1900"?
Should you ever come across it, there's an Austrian series from the 70s called Alpensaga which covers the history of a town in Upper Austria from 1900 to 1945. Recommended.

[Hueij]

With 1900, do you mean Novecento, the Italian movie? It has been over 20 years since I saw that one, so my memory is somewhat vague. ISTR that 1900 was about two friends that drifted apart, one becoming a Fascist and the other a Communist during the first half of the 20th century.

Heimat is different in that it doesn't have a real plot, it is just about people living their lives the best way they know how. In Heimat there are no heroes (ISTR that in Novecento the Communist guy was the sympathetic one but I could be wrong), all the characters do things that make you wonder.

For instance, in the first series there is this woman in Berlin that owns a bordello but she marries one of the main characters because she thinks he is a rich farmer. When they return to his village she finds out he is just a nobody but she tries to make the best of it. She sucks up to the Nazi's, pushes her husband to become mayor, and sucks up to the "Ami's" after the "liberation". Opportunism at its worst. But instead of abhorring her you feel sympathetic to her, she is just someone trying to get by. When the series skips a couple of years there is a graveyard scene and you see her grave. When I saw that I really was going like WTF? I want to see more of her! But just like in real life people come and go...