Michael Kausch Movies
- 2004
- Add Heimat 3 - Chronik Einer Zeitenwende to QueueAdd Heimat 3 - Chronik Einer Zeitenwende to top of Queue
Director Edgar Reitz concludes his epic-length, tripartite chronicle of the Simon clan with the 11-hour (six episode) Heimat 3: A Chronicle of Endings and Beginnings. The omega and alpha of the title refer to the fall of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe, circa 1989 (an event that christens the opening of the film) and the outset of the new millennium (which marks the conclusion). In between, Reitz plunges into the world of the Simons - residents of the village of Schabbach in the Hunsrück region of Germany - and investigates the myriad of ways in which events from their lives intersect with broader German sociopolitical shifts over the course of the 1990s. This installment begins with the youngest Simon son, Hermann, and his lover, Clarissa, renovating a centuries-old house on a cliff above the Rhine, not far from Lorelei. As time unfurls, Reitz cross-cuts between the experiences of the couple, their parents, their children, and the workmen assisting with the home renovation, and gradually reveals how a sense of national pride and unity at the beginning of the 1990s (coincident with German reunification) ultimately yielded to disillusionment, disappointment, and crushing awareness of mortality from individual to individual as the decade ended. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Henry Arnold, Salome Kammer, (more)
- 1989
Herman (Ernst Stankovski) and his young wife Elisabeth (Nicole Heesters) are on their way to Kiev, where Herman (an architect) is to deliver a lecture. He takes the opportunity of his travels to the east to revisit the town he grew up in before the war. It is now part of Poland, but was formerly within the borders of Germany. His visit, and the fact that he survived some untrue allegations that he was Jewish (which caused him grave difficulty during World War II), sets off a wave of encounters, discussions and confrontations with people from his past. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ernst Stankovski, Nicole Heesters, (more)
Unlike other feature-length versions of European TV miniseries, Heimat loses nothing in its translation to the big screen. It was 15 1/2 hours on TV, and remained 15 1/2 hours in theatres! Produced for German television over a 5-year period, Heimat details the turbulent years between 1919 and 1982 through the eyes of the citizens of a small, fictional German village. The central character is Marita Breuer, who matures from a fresh-faced teen to a wrinkled, grim-visaged survivor of the best and the worst life has to offer. The final sequences, far removed from such traumatic collective experiences as the inflation of 1923 and the war of the 1940s, tend to be more sentimental than the earlier passages, but are no less masterfully handled by director Edgar Reitz. Also worth noting is cinematographer Gernot Roll's creative use of color, often switching between hues and monochrome within a scene for dramatic impact. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Marita Breuer, Dieter Schaad, (more)
