The Baader Meinhof Complex
Based Stefan Aust’s best selling book, this is an edgy, compelling if somewhat flawed look at Germany’s radical left wing terrorist group the Red Army Faction (RAF) which organized bombings, robberies, kidnappings and assassinations in the late 1960s and 70s. Its leaders, Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader, remain two of Germany’s most notorious and sometimes glamorised terrorists. It was inevitable that a film would eventually emerge about their organisation.
Thankfully, The Baader Meinhof Complex goes a long way to debunk the mythology that sprung up around the RAF, both at the time and subsequently. The hypocrisy, ignorance and in some cases ineptitude of those involved is made abundantly clear. In one amusing sequence, Andreas steals a wallet, only to then be furious as someone steals his car directly afterwards (which isn’t even his car). More seriously, when they visit a Palestinian terrorist camp for training, their motivation for robbing banks (expropriating the money in the name of the people) is exposed for the selfishness it really is, especially since the Palestinians are fighting a genuine war. On the subject of Palestine, any sympathy I might have had with the RAF cause (which wouldn’t have been much) was immediately lost early in the film when Ulrike began to spout the usual ill-informed right-on gibberish about the Palestinian cause and their fight to “get their land back” (it was never theirs, but I won’t go into that here – Google my Munich review for that axe-grind if you are so inclined). Incidentally, it is implied that the same terrorists the RAF get their training from are those that carry out the 1972 Munich Olympic massacres of the Israeli team.
On the other hand, the film is at great pains to point out through documentary footage of other turbulent political events of the time (the Vietnam War, the Kennedy/Martin Luther King assassinations, the French/Algerian conflict and so forth) that there were terrible injustices that warranted people speaking up. A short sequence at the start of the film sees a peaceful protest against a visit by the Shah turn violent when the Shah’s entourage of “supporters” turn against the German crowd and attack them. The German protesters expect the police to protect them, only for them to join in with the attack against them. I am not sure if this riot was apocryphal, but if is intended to generate a modicum of sympathy for the RAF then it doesn’t go far enough.
Director Uli Edel was no doubt attempting to create an even handed picture with the uncompromising clarity of the riveting 1967 film The Battle of Algiers, but instead it just feels messy. The screenplay is episodic in its determination to include so much history, leading to a clumsily abrupt end. By refusing to offer any easy answers, audiences end up emotionally aloof.
On the plus side, the cast are all excellent. Moritz Bliebtrau, Johana Wokalek and especially Martina Gedeck (as superb here as she was in The Lives of Others) all contribute fearless performances. The film has a restless, gritty energy and pace to match the most frenzied of Hollywood offerings in this genre (one thinks of Oliver Stone’s JFK for instance). Cinematographer Rainer Klausmann seems to actively seek the next object to hurtle his camera into, and Alexander Berner’s editing is effectively sharp.
From a moral perspective, The Baader Meinhof Complex is to be commended for one thing: exposing the folly of self-appointed revolutionaries for what it really is. Yet there is a modicum of ambivalence in this revelation in that despite their many faults, these terrorist organisations succeed in their desire to bring their political causes to the attention of the authorities. One can almost admire them for this, since they didn’t settle for the apathy of a bystander. Almost.
Then one remembers the atrocities they committed in carrying out their objectives. For instance, bombing US military bases based in Germany in retaliation for Vietnam, hijacking a Lufthansa flight and most hypocritically, bombing a right wing newspaper, undermining their own arguments about freedom of speech. Such heinous acts remain completely unjustifiable, and are rightly deserving of the strongest condemnation. Spiritually, the film offers no answers whatsoever, and it is full to the brim with sex, violence, nudity and very strong language. Such content is clearly not intended to be there for titillation but it isn’t always necessary either.
In short; a provocative, but frustratingly mixed bag.
Simon Dillon, November 2008.
