60
The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg
Despite some tedious passages, Heimat Is a Space in Time takes an intriguing approach to history that remains refreshingly rooted in primary sources.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
75
Thomas Heise’s documentary seeks to excavate real human thought and feeling beneath the haze of larger political structures.
83
The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak
We learn everything there is to know about an entire country through the Heise family’s words. Some passages prove better than others, but none are inconsequential to the whole.
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Kate Taylor
To watch German documentarian Thomas Heise’s marathon family memoir Heimat is a Space in Time, the viewer has to continually analyze the relationship between text and image.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Keith Uhlich
Heimat certainly has the feel of a summative work
63
RogerEbert.com by Matt Fagerholm
If this material were compiled into a book, it would be rightfully deemed great literature. As featured in Heise’s film, however, these insightful words are frequently marred by a style oddly akin to a mournful podcast, one that requires listeners to repeatedly peer at their phone to read the subtitles.
60
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
I was sometimes captivated but often frustrated by this epic essay-film, a meditation on Germany and his own family history that is stark, fierce, austerely cerebral and almost four hours long.
80
Los Angeles Times by Robert Abele
In its extreme length and precise technique, it’s decidedly not for everybody. But although it is at times distractingly opaque, occasionally Heise’s family’s words, juxtaposed with his sounds and images, crystallize into something singularly wise about the nexus of place, history and trauma.
80
The overall effect of Heise’s work is mesmeric, persuasive and cumulatively powerful, as each piece of the puzzle falls into place and he lands on overarching insights into a German century and what it portends for the future.