In this eleven-part film made for TV, Reitz portrays his country's difficult history from 1919 to the present day without recourse to soap operatics. Maria, born in 1900, is the still point around whom others move emotionally, economically, and politically, with the narrative developing through a superbly sustained accumulation of detail. Humane and comic, it's very finely acted, exact in period detail, and immaculately photographed in monochrome with occasional bursts of colour of an epiphanic resonance. A magnificent achievement that will reward every hour it demands of your time.