'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria
'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria
'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria
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If German films are to make use <strong>of</strong> what is their last chance internationally, they<br />
must come to terms with their Nazi past. Our generation is the only one that can<br />
deal with the period at all, for we can drop the whole moral burden, we were<br />
never Nazi. We can tell the story <strong>of</strong> 1940 with open eyes. (Quoted in Fischli n.<br />
pag.)<br />
Reitz addressed the German past in his fifteen-and-a-half-hour filmic epic,<br />
Heimat I, which was released as an eleven-part series on West German television in<br />
1984. As one <strong>of</strong> the most ambitious West German film and television projects, Heimat<br />
took five years to complete. Reitz‟s mammoth work traces the history <strong>of</strong> Schabbach, a<br />
small village in the Hunsrück mountains, from the 1920s to the 1950s through the<br />
destinies <strong>of</strong> various villagers, primarily the members <strong>of</strong> one family, the Simons.<br />
Twentieth-century German history is presented as a backdrop to the characters‟ personal<br />
lives. As Eric Santner explains, “Located initially on the outermost margins <strong>of</strong> history<br />
writ large […] the village <strong>of</strong>fers the opportunity to bear witness to the slower rhythms <strong>of</strong><br />
history from below” (59). Criticized for its sentimental tendencies, but praised for its<br />
close attention to the organization <strong>of</strong> quotidian life, Heimat provoked intense debates<br />
about the relationship between history, memory, narrative, and national identity.<br />
Specifically, the series was criticized for its affirmative recreation <strong>of</strong> Germanness outside<br />
the realities <strong>of</strong> anti-Semitism. Gertrude Koch, one <strong>of</strong> the most outspoken critics <strong>of</strong><br />
Heimat, accused the film <strong>of</strong> marginalizing the fate <strong>of</strong> the Jews. She states,<br />
The film reproduces the standard ellipses concerning the extermination <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Jews […] Whenever real horror would have to be thematized, the film resorts to<br />
[…] fade-out strategies which are analogous to the defense mechanisms <strong>of</strong><br />
experience and as such elude critical reflection. (16-17)<br />
Despite such criticism, Heimat was enthusiastically received by West German<br />
television audiences and at film festivals in Venice, London and the United States<br />
(Santner 57). Riding on the wave <strong>of</strong> Heimat‟s international success, Bernhard Sinkel<br />
28