Watch Home from Home – Chronicle of a Vision For Free

Simply Perfect

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

How many unforgettable images can Edgar Reitz create? Country girls given coins, stare dumbly into their palms. A girl with a malformed leg is ostracized. Country people protest "Liberté!" to returned Prussian authorities. A stone cutter becomes mute on his way to oblivion, but first he cuts an agate slice that contains the world. Where do Reitz, and Casting Director An Dorthe Braker (Downfall, Bader-Meinhof Complex), find actors who seem to step out of a time machine? Where does Reitz get the poignancy of turns of fate changing lives utterly in a world where everything is grown, pounded, turned, and wrested from the earth, if not by yourself and your family, by others who you've known all your life? Under the comet of 1843, hawkers sell passage to paradise to people who never once left the Hunsruck. The damson berries are harvested, and youths become intoxicated on music and dancing. A Prussian lackey reads a hateful decree to an empty street. A lone rider brings more emigration papers. Neighbors and families walk beside their wagons, to Rotterdam and beyond on a journey they cannot comprehend except that there is no return. In Schabbach, the remaining Simons endure, and repair and improve the family smithy. A letter arrives from Brazil after 13 months, and is read to the astonished gathering. We are in Schabbach to witness all of this.

Way back in 1984 German director Edgar Reitz directed a TV miniseries called Heimat: A Chronicle of Germany. (Heimat meaning Homeland.) This 15 hour long miniseries became the first part of his Heimat films. In these films he would try and tell Germany's history through characters in the small fictional town of Schabbach. He would later add two more TV miniseries and two films to his massive series. The most recent edition to the Heimat story being Home from Home: Chronicle of a Vision. For the newest edition to the series Edgar Reitz decided to take the story all the way back to the beginning, specifically the town of Schabbach in the mid 19th Century. Which is the farthest back in time any Heimat film has taken place. The film mainly focuses on the story of Jakob, (played by Jan Dieter Schneider in his first thematic performance, and it's a great debut.) a young member of Schabbach who has dreams of leaving his small poor town and emigrate to Brazil. But unfortunately for him he keeps finding himself unexpectedly detained. And as the years slowly go by he becomes less and less hopeful of ever leaving Schabbach.I should mention this before continuing the review, you don't need to see all of the other Heimat film before you see this one, it's a prequel and for the most part not connected to the other films at all. So don't let the Heimat series massive length deter you from watching Home from Home Even though Home from Home is much shorter than most of the other installments to the Heimat series, it is still a very long film. Home from Home clocks in at nearly four hours long but it doesn't feel nearly that long. The film is slow paced, but it never feels boring because it's able to enchant the audience with its likable characters and simple and relatable themes. We follow Jakob and his family through all there different toils and troubles that they are faced with, whether it be the difficulties of planting and harvesting seasons, oppression from the rich Barron, or finding new love. By the end of the film we are incredibly close to these characters and feel a deep personal connection with them, nearly every single character has there own private scene, so the audience can't help but feel part of the small town of Schabbach There are also several different scenes or objected that reused or referenced throughout the film, giving the film a nice since of cohesion. The cinematography, while being amazing for most of the film, does have some weaker parts. Home from Home is mostly a black and white film, but there are a few objects throughout the film that are in color. (Like the girl in the red dress from Schindler's List.) And sometimes this really works, and other times it doesn't. Sometimes it just looks really out of place and really just come across as an eyesore, the coloring is really sloppy and does not fit with the rest of the film. Not to mention that sometimes it's completely unnecessary, so you end up wondering why it was still in the final cut of the film. But the soundtrack is luckily consistently good throughout the film, and fits Home from Home perfectly.While you're watching Home from Home you don't realize the effect it's having on you. But when it's over, you'll find it's difficult to get Home from Home out of you're head. You'll find yourself mulling over the characters and events constantly, and you'll find that you miss the characters and will want to return to the film just to relive the moments. And as I aid before you don't need to see the other Heimat films before you see this one, so do yourself a favor and check it out8.3

Not only a song title, but also a dilemma many people in villages might face. There's always reasons that will feed into both sides of the argument (or the decision on what to do). This movie has been considered and called "boring" by some. And I wouldn't blame anyone saying that, because the pace of the movie is really slow.It takes the time to introduce the characters and it also takes the time to make the evolve (or devolve). The journey might not lead always where you expect it to go and "rules" (unwritten ones) defy feelings many times. But some things can obviously not be changed. So the characters do have to go with the flow of things. Melodrama that could be easily avoided ensues, but that's life isn't it?

I won't write a long panegyric here: I can just say that if you liked the other "Heimat" installments, you will like this "prequel" as well. And if, like many viewers, you watched the previous films with an almost religious devotion, you will feel the same way about this one (actually, two).Somehow Reitz has found the secret of putting his viewers deeply into the situation to the point where you really do feel "you are there" -- and he can do this whether the setting is contemporary, early 20th century or, as here, in the 1840's.The first installment is admittedly a little long, but there is ample payback in the second, which seeing the first is necessary in order to set up the situation.