Heimat 1 (1984)

The full title is: Homeland: A German Chronicle ("Heimat – Eine deutsche Chronik.")I just finished watching all 6 DVDs in this mini-series and have to say I didn't really care for it, but wanted to watch it all the way through just to see if it got better (it didn't.)

It was called the "Roots" version for Germans, but I don't see how this mini-series can be compared to the other. If I was German I would be annoyed that this movie was supposed to show what ordinary Germans went through from 1919-1987. In an American sense it would be like showing the people in a small town in the Ozarks and saying it was about all Americans. There was one scene where an older guy was making-out with a younger woman and then he stopped and said: "You know... My mother is your grandmother." Talk about incest at it's best.

For one thing it doesn't show anything major (like the hyper-inflation, World War 2, the Cold War, etc.) If they are mentioned it is only in passing. While the rise of the Nazis is shown briefly it does show that the very low, unintelligent and the outcasts (ie former prostitutes) were welcomed with open arms and even gained high-level ranks and became part of the SS. There were the ones to prosper and thrive during the war. One thing that I didn't understand is that the one guy, Otto, claims his mother is Jewish which makes him half Jewish in the eyes of the Nazis and yet he was allowed into the German Army instead of being sent to a camp. When the war is over no one seems to care that former SS and others are still living openly.

The whole mini-series was just off-putting. I didn't care for it being mostly in black-and-white and only a few scenes in color. I also didn't like that the so-called Americans (ie the American soldiers, the driver and the assistant) all had thick German accents when speaking in English. They all said "zee" instead of "the." You would think that in West Germany in the 1980s when this was made they could find someone who could actually speak English. Also, it only showed life in one small town in West Germany (since if it was in East Germany the brothers would not have been allowed to open their own factories or businesses) thus leaving one whole section of the German public out. I guess that since it was made during the Cold War it would have been hard to portray life in East Germany, but they could at least have mentioned that Germany was divided.

While the basic characters can be found in almost any town in the world (the village idiot, those that just want to get out, etc) the way their stories intertwine didn't really mesh well. The story lines could have been much better and then the mini-series would have been really good. I do not know how much of what happened is based on facts and how much was made-up, but if it was all true than I would never want to live in that town.