The supercut is a simple staple of the video essay form. So simple that it is sometimes seen as too basic for serious analytical purposes. Marion Kellmann‘s Heimatfilm is proof to the contrary. Her 16 minute long compilation of shots and sequences from German Heimatfilms is as revealing as it is hilarious.

The Heimatfilm is a German film genre that became popular after the second World War and remained so until around 1960. The hundreds of Heimatfilms that were made all share the same sentimental and nostalgic portrayal of rural life and regional traditions. In these movies the camera dwells on idyllic landscapes and picturesque backdrops, and on the wildlife populating them. Themes such as family and community are obligatory and the simple pleasures of home life are idealized. The standard storyline typically features a romance and some kind of moral dilemma, and it introduces a villain so that good can triumph over evil. Kellmann’s alternative title for this short, … und der Sünder bereut (which translates as … and the sinner repents) is another nod to the narrative conventions of the genre.

Kellmann fashions excerpts from fifty different films into a template for the whole genre. It is the quintessential supercut: each sequence strings together one particular action or setpiece by combining shots from various movies. The similarities are often striking and the uniformity is so trite that it becomes laughable. Half a dozen women merrily go about cleaning the house, singing to themselves. Half a dozen men clad in Lederhose stroll through unspoilt nature, only to stumble upon half a dozen poachers. By deftly combining recurring situations and motifs from the fifty films she surveyed, Kellmann boils the genre down to its narrative, thematic and iconographic essence. The end result is almost a full-fledged narrative short (and it that way it reminds of György Pálfi’s monumental Final Cut).

Heimatfilm is doing the festival rounds with great success, and rightly so. It is one of the best examples of the power of the supercut to critique and entertain at the same time.