My relationship with the German epic film Heimat goes a long way. When its first set of 11 episodes were shown on TV in the early 80s (in spite of it being made for the big screen), I was 14 I think, a troubled teenager unsure of her place in the world, puberty playing tricks on my mind and emotions. And then this film. My impression of it, utterly based on distant memories, is that of my family photoalbum coming to life. It was scary, very scary. It triggered uncontrollable emotions, emotions new to me, emotions that shook and frightened me. I was unable to continue watching it.

Years later and the the German University department I taught at decided to bring German Studies closer to the students and do a film course. Which ended up not being any closer to the students as it turned out, but that's another story. The Department expressed a conviction that Heimat should be taught, and it should only be taught by a German. So there I was, still mildly concerned about having to watch it, even if more than twice the age now.

I watched it and loved it. And tried reflecting on the effect it had had and still has on me. I picked it as a primary text for my PhD thesis because it had a "gypsy" character in the first episode. I had to scrap it in the end, but the Apollonia article (in German) is still available on this site as is another paper I wrote on film portrayals of Romanies (in English). All my enthusiasm couldn't sparkle across to the students though and I wonder whether it's an age thing or a "German" thing, whether it needs to relate to you so intimately as the film does to me.

So what is Heimat? For those who don't know Edgar Reitz, its director and writer, and the film, it's an epic film about the family Simon from rural Schabbach, Hunsrück. The first series of 11 episodes of 90 minutes follows Maria Simon, who is 19 at the outset (after the 1st World War 1919) and dies in 1982. She's the calendar of the series. The second series follows Hermann Simon, son of Maria, who leaves the rural backwater for the big city, art, university and a career in music. Methinks this series has 13 episodes. The last and recently premiered Heimat 3 is much shorter and follows Hermann Simon's return to the Hunsrück in 6 parts.

The film is special not only because of its length and breadth. It is also special in that it uses black and white and colour intermittently, and never falls prey to speed and superficiality. It takes its time, literally. It takes its time to develop the characters, the landscape of the Hunsrück and music might be the protagonists in this respect. It takes time to take in the image, the feeling, the feelings indeed. It portrays a family and its up and downs and this may be the secret for its suprise success: The film was shown on television for practical reasons and magically fitted into the soap opera genre, even though it's anything but a soap. It's also special because it portrays a century of German history, but not from the distant perspective of the historian, but from the very margins of society, from the most remote are of the country and the most ordinary of people with all their shortcomings. Finally, the very title of the film has hit bang in the middle of the very difficult German identity. Heimat means home. It also means homeland. The term carries notions of cosiness, belonging, a primeval unspoilt state of mind, a place, a time, a state of mind. It was used and abused by ideologies, movements and culture. And it has been reinvented again and again. The term was used by Hitler to create nationalism, by 68 generation for nuclear disarmament and the peace movement. It's big enough to accommodate it all. But above all, it's never smug and this is why the film initially so disturbed me.

I too stem from the same rural backwater, next door to the Hunsrück, the dialect used in the film so close to my grandparents' speech which as a child I never understood and yet felt like snuggling into. The slow speed of these weekends in my grannies house. The clock ticking, the old kitchen (living room was never used), the dreariness, boredom, beauty and gossip. Endless gossip and homemade jam. Cosiness and rejection at the same time.

Heimat 3 (and I'm half way through the 6 episodes) covers the time between the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 to the millenium celebrations. Again, history is seen through the eyes of ordinary participants and Thomas Brussig helped Edgar Reitz with the East German screenplay, and very successfully so. I can recognise each individual character in it as if it's my best friend. This time though, it's also my history, I've lived through it and it's no longer a family album eerily coming alive, no longer the reminiscence of my parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles. The effect is still similar: I suffer with each character, laugh and cry with them, feel like embracing them and not every wanting to leave them. I dread the end of the series, I'm so emotionally involved. The third episode was so sad, I've been down myself for a full day now. This epic is a true achievement, not just because of its scope, but because it manages to remain at the artery of the German experience. It's so honest that every feeling of German pride is stifled at the start (which has been ignored time and again by certain reviewers who saw the film as a dangers reemergence of German nationalism as well as a downplaying of the role of Nazi Germany - it never downplayed it but stayed true to its premise to show it from the perspective of the rural backwater, a world apart from the centre of power in Berlin) and replaced by truly ambiguous feelings towards this place I know so well. The Hunsrück has this otherworldly beauty and yet its monstrous side as well, and you can never have one without the other. One stays torn between "Heimat" and "Ferne", or "Wahlheimat" (home of your choice).

Here we meet the East Germans who venture into a fairyland that turns out to have lost its soul, Russian Germans who follow them with their own hopes and dreams, we see worlds clash and meet, people come closer and drift apart. Big hearts and tiny world attitudes. A must see surely, and I applaud the GFT (Glasgow Film Theatre, our arthouse cinema) for its courage to actually screen all 6 parts and enable us elect few to see Heimat 3 as it was meant to be seen: on the big screen.

The only quibble I have with the first three episodes is the portrayal of openness towards the newcomers. Be it for pity for their plight or for their useful skills, the people of Schabbach seem to have waited for East Germans and Russian Germans to arrive in their midst. I remember the time differently, full of right wing violence against whoever was the latest newcomer, East German, then Russian German, then Asylum Seekers, then Polish Germans. It was a volatile time with plenty of right wing violence and anti-right wing demonstrations, but even the mainstream was concerned about the number of New Germans and the effect this would have on the economy and employment. It wasn't the easy relationship as portrayed in the film so far - but I give it time to give the full picture, after all, there's still another 3 episodes to go.