"Heimat 3 - Chronik einer Zeitenwende" or "Heimat 3: A Chronicle of Endings and Beginnings" is as the title suggests the third entry to Edgar Reitz' Heimat trilogy. Well, it was a trilogy back then, now it is a quadrology you could say because he added a fourth chapter that is a really long movie and not a mini-series for the first time. But lets ignore that one and talk about this third installment here. It consists of six episodes (less than for the previous) and each of these episode runs between 90 minutes and 2 hours approximately, so if you are really hardcore you can actually watch the entire thing on one day. I am not sure if this is a good idea though. And that has to do with the quality overall, or lack thereof I could also say. It is extremely slow from beginning to end and even when something crucial happens, it feels somewhat lethargic even. Now this would not be a problem in fact if this had turned out to be a convincing character study with memorable protagonists, but it just isn't. I kept wondering why these people/characters deserved their own movie, their own story put on screen. I mean the fact that they are as normal as we are. And maybe as boring just isn't good enough of an explanation admittedly. I was also missing real depth here. Yes I never had the impression to watch actors, but real characters, but this does not mean I cared what these characters were doing or what would happen to them. Slightly memorable moments like the ones in the last episode that show us a father growing closer to his daughter (now that would have been super awkward if it wasn't a father-daughter story) are far from frequent enough for this to become an interesting project. Even for a 2-hour movie, they would have been too rare, but for like 11 hours it was just like watching paint sry at times. Highly disappointing. I am surprised many people actually like this series. But it is all about the general approach and atmosphere I guess. Maybe it helps if you actually come from "Schabbach" yourself, but I use the " because this place does not really exist and is fictitious, but there are many in Germany where the situation is a bit similar, so I as somebody from the big city struggled with making a connection location-wise.
I also realized that I really hated the accent the more often I heard it, which I was not aware of before. So the good news is that I think this is not worse than Heimat 1 and 2, but this is just because those were also already fairly disappointing admittedly. The fourth was better and I enjoyed it at the big screen in a local theater here a while ago. Each of these take us into different eras in time, but what could have worked really well as a contemporary statement on Germany and what it was like at that point in terms of history, society etc. felt really falt from this perspective too. This one here starts in 1989, so of course the Fall of the Berlin Wall is a big subject. Well, not really. I mean we witness the characters living during these stormy days, but it is never about what happens really and their personal lives and interactions with each other get all the focus, so that it feels the story could have taken place during a completely different time. Or country maybe even. Such a disappointment. I mean I obviously did not expect a big GDR-themed movie here and I can see that where they lived, it wasn't too big of a subject as it was here in Berlin for example, but i still wished they could have elaborated better on the historic background. Okay, that would be all then. Each and every episode here gets a thumbs-down from me as well as the entire thing obviously. I don't think I will ever watch again, although I have a feeling that this could be a project that is easier to appreciate when getting older. I don't know. It just dragged too much and had way too many lengths for me to think that I could ever like it. I give it a negative recommendation. Watch something else instead. There are many many far superior projects from the 2000s here in terms of German filmmaking. Oh yeah and as almost always with Reitz, you won't really find any famous German actors here like big name stars, but mostly "his group of actors" that has also starred partially in previous Heimat installments.
I also realized that I really hated the accent the more often I heard it, which I was not aware of before. So the good news is that I think this is not worse than Heimat 1 and 2, but this is just because those were also already fairly disappointing admittedly. The fourth was better and I enjoyed it at the big screen in a local theater here a while ago. Each of these take us into different eras in time, but what could have worked really well as a contemporary statement on Germany and what it was like at that point in terms of history, society etc. felt really falt from this perspective too. This one here starts in 1989, so of course the Fall of the Berlin Wall is a big subject. Well, not really. I mean we witness the characters living during these stormy days, but it is never about what happens really and their personal lives and interactions with each other get all the focus, so that it feels the story could have taken place during a completely different time. Or country maybe even. Such a disappointment. I mean I obviously did not expect a big GDR-themed movie here and I can see that where they lived, it wasn't too big of a subject as it was here in Berlin for example, but i still wished they could have elaborated better on the historic background. Okay, that would be all then. Each and every episode here gets a thumbs-down from me as well as the entire thing obviously. I don't think I will ever watch again, although I have a feeling that this could be a project that is easier to appreciate when getting older. I don't know. It just dragged too much and had way too many lengths for me to think that I could ever like it. I give it a negative recommendation. Watch something else instead. There are many many far superior projects from the 2000s here in terms of German filmmaking. Oh yeah and as almost always with Reitz, you won't really find any famous German actors here like big name stars, but mostly "his group of actors" that has also starred partially in previous Heimat installments.