It was my turn to contribute a suggestion to RNZ’s What We’re Watching series yesterday and I am delighted to recommend this one to you, too.
There are so many real estate shows! Fix it and flip it renovations, tiny homes, Alaskan cabins. There's something for every taste.
In 2020 AppleTV+ jumped into this burgeoning market but in typical Apple fashion, they did it with taste and class. Directed by a range of acclaimed filmmakers, each episode of Home – except the last – joins the story after the houses have been built and each one centres the people who are at the heart of each one.
From the Swedish glasshouse cabin in episode one (which helped a father connect with his autistic son) to the conversion of abandoned buildings on the deprived Southside of Chicago into vibrant and exciting community facilities, and the modernist Austin home built on top of a former toxic brownfields site, but which is now almost totally blended into restored wetlands, each episode is distinctive and rewarding.
My favourite two are a complete contrast. Bamboo is the fastest growing structural timber you can get, and the architect and developer of some incredible luxury Bali lodges delights in telling us that none of the wood in her build existed more than five years earlier.
And the modest Hong Kong architect who has converted the tiny (34 square metre) apartment he grew up in into a home of infinite variety thanks to moveable walls, a Murphy bed, and an attitude towards space that we could all learn a thing or two from.
The final episode does follow a build as a charity attempts to use complex 3D concrete printing to solve the problem of affordable housing for the poorest people in rural Mexico, reminding us that all these glorious homes are inaccessible to 99 percent of the planet, no matter how inspiring they are.
Click here to see more images and read more about why I love this show so much.
Where to watch Home
Worldwide: Streaming on AppleTV+
Editor’s note
If you haven’t already, I’d recommend you make the occasional visit to the F&S newsletter home page – substack.funeralsandsnakes.net. There, for New Zealand subscribers, I have broken all the newsletter content up by streaming provider, etc.
That way, if you are just looking for a suggestion for something to watch on Netflix, you’ll see recent updates that relate to that service.
I know that not everybody reads every word every day, so that’s a good way to catch up on something relevant that you might have missed.
Archive entries that are over a month old are available to paid subscribers only.
There’s also a ‘leaderboard’ for referrals. The most referrals in any given calendar month will get a special prize from me (and Madman Entertainment). You’ll need a minimum of three referrals in order to be considered.
And the original version of the Funerals & Snakes website still exists, and is the source of quite a few of these entries. I’m slowly going through and tidying those pages up (and adding reviews to Letterboxd) as I have time.