Heimat: A Chronicle of Germany

This is a great movie, and all of the episodes are interesting. The characters are engaging and the actors are very good. But it's just too much to digest. The post-war stuff could use the most trimming. There are interesting comments about the attitudes of a changing Germany, but there's a lot of fat too. The other major problem is that it keeps shifting from black & white to color. At first, it's a useful technique, but it quickly becomes a distraction. It's almost random at times.

This is a very good TV miniseries that plays like a very long movie. Great aging makeup that doesn't look distracting. Pretty much all of the episodes and characters are interesting. The ninth episode feels quite out of place, but is still compelling (maybe even the most compelling episode taken in a vacuum?) It's an ambitious project, tracing one family in Germany (Ken Follett style) from 1919-1982 (though the lion's share of it is before 1950). Great stuff.

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A great series indeed. Drama is rather interesting, esp. at some episodes, but it's visual implementation is even better. I really like this idea about narration around photos, and I found b-w/colour switching is really makes a trick to underline story turns, character attitudes, etc.

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