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32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A New Amorality, October 5, 2009
West Germany, 1967: After a disastrous engagement between the federal republic of Germany's left wing student population and parties sympathetic to the visiting Shah of Iran degenerates into street violence and results in the firebombing of a department store and an assassination attempt on the life of socialist firebrand, Rudi Dutschke, a group of increasingly disaffected German students and petty criminals begin to coalesce around the magnetic personalities of malcontent street punk, Andreas Baader, and his girlfriend, Gudrun Ensslin. Amongst those caught in their gravity is middle-class, left-wing journalist and media personality, Ulrike Meinhof. Baader and Ensslin have decided that politely protesting the policies of American and Israeli "Imperialism" with acts of civil disobedience is no longer enough and decide to engage in armed struggle against the constitutional powers of West Germany. Over the next ten years, the result of the alliance between Baader, Esselin and Meinhof, The `Red Army Faction' (aka the Baader-Meinhof Group), was to terrorise not only the FDR, but the governments and populations of countries far beyond it's borders.
Attempting to relate the tale of the rise to prominence of the RAF, much less adapt Stefan Aust's incredibly convoluted door-stopper of a book, was, I suspected, going to be nigh-on impossible - but Uli Edel's film achieves this virtually impossible task with aplomb. As well as being one of the most impressive thrillers that I've seen in years, its also one of the most fascinating portraits of the corruption and degeneration of political idealism ever to make its way to screen.
Performances are for the most part excellent and Moritz Bleibtreu perfectly embodies the essence of Aust's rendering of Baader - essentially a wayward, misogynistic hooligan who seemed more interested in playing with machine guns than liberating the "oppressed of the world". The yin to Bleibtreu's yang is Martina Gedeck's turn as Ulrike Meinhof: who appears to have been a cosseted champagne socialist who eventually became so misguided and so passionately committed to the struggle against "oppression and imperialism" that she was rather horrifyingly prepared to deliver her own children into a camp for Syrian orphans rather than see them raised under "the yoke of imperialism". There is a telling suggestion that the catalyst which may have precipitated the already fragile Meinhof's fall was the discovery of her husband's infidelity.
From a directorial stance, Edel manages to pull off the difficult trick of observing both sides of the conflict without favouring either. His rendering of the government in the FDR in sixties is anything but nostalgic and seems to suggest that it was inevitable that a group such as the RAF would eventually arise from the formenting crucible of social, political and governmental dissatisfaction that prevailed at the time. On the reverse side of the coin however, it cannot be argued that his sympathies lie with his revolutionary protagonists either, as he is only too willing to clinically dissect their personal failings as well as the raving hypocrisy of their objectives and opinions.
A fascinating portrait of an extreme group of misguided individuals living through the most turbulent period of the late twentieth century, "The Baader Meinhof Complex" is a fascinating study of personal obsession played out through political objectification and one of the best films that I've seen this year.
Highly recommended.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
small Subtitles Ruin The DVD For English Speaking Watchers, September 29, 2009
I have never seen subtitles this small. I am having great difficulty reading them on a 32" set at 5 feet. The movie gets 3 Stars, the Subs 1 star. Oddly, the subs are larger on the bonus material.
I came to this film from reviewing the book of the same title for Amazon Vine. While true to the story, the film is quite different from the book. Despite running 143 minutes, the film is very fast paced & strong on action while being somewhat light on detail. I found the book too clinical & slow paced, & found the film to be almost the opposite. I enjoyed the film once I got over being angry about the teeny subtitles, but would not recommend it to someone who didn't already have a reasonably good familiarity with the RAF story; unless all you're looking for is an entertaining action thriller. Having some idea of the RAF story from Aust's book, I found the film enjoyable, but still had some issues understanding small sections. From an entertainment & emotional point of view, it is largely an enjoyable film, & my understanding is that Mr. Aust was involved in insuring it was as factually correct as possible.
I also found the film to paint the most sympathetic picture of the RAF I have seen anywhere other then extreme left web sites. While I lean strongly left myself & agree with some of their ideals, I'm not sure that these folks deserve a sympathetic portrait. They were cold blooded killers. There of course were 2 sides to the story, & as presented both here & in Aust's book, the German govt of the early - mid 60's made Bush look nice by comparison.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A potent depiction of extremism, its motives and consequences; a timely reflection on a pivotal episode in German history, February 13, 2010
This review is from: Baader Meinhof Complex (2pc) (Ws Sub) (DVD)
The Baader Meinhof Complex is an at once exhilarating and horrific depiction of the rise and fall of a very prominent left-wing extremist group in '70s Germany, formed from an uneasy alliance between journalist Ulrike Meinhof and the incendiary couple Andreas Baader and his girlfriend Gudrun Ensslin. The film explores the initial motivations for their radicalization, the shift from anger and rebellion to increasingly violent acts of terror, and the dissolution of the group's ideology into seeming incoherence as the personal began to overwhelm the political. While watching I wondered if the casting choices had made the characters more appealing than in real life - they were all very striking young men and women - but a bit of research shows it to be quite accurate. They did a remarkable job in capturing the likeness of the actual individuals depicted.
It is a complex film, that highlights the allure of the struggle, at the same time as it reveals the individuals behind it to be deeply human and imperfect, at times conflicted and at others resolute, even dogmatic, to the point of becoming what they had initially struggled against - these are not the mythological figures that came to be idolized by some and hated by others. A fascinating paradox explored by the film is that in war one side inevitably takes on qualities of its enemy: to fight an underground extremist group, the state must employ its tactics, must become flexible and bend the rule of law and its protection of individual rights such as privacy; to stand up against the force of a powerful regime, the anarchic underground must increasingly become autocratic, must not tolerate dissent.
The film is beautifully shot, and edited for an ideal balance of intensity and clarity. There is the feel of a living situation - characters don't have constantly to explain themselves to each other, and you feel the urgency with which they experience their own moments in time - and yet, there is enough laid out that even those unfamiliar with the actual history this is based on should be able to catch up quickly and follow along. The decision to incorporate real footage from the era creates a sense of authenticity and even current relevance that is hard to shake off, emphasizing that this film cannot simply be approached as an escapist fantasy. The reception of the film in Germany at the time of its release was telling - on the one hand there were those who felt that in taking both sides the film failed to capture the heroism and ideals of the leaders, who are still revered by many; and there were others who felt that the decision to tell most of the story from the point of view of the Baader Meinhof group members had the dangerous potential of creating an identification with them and of making their actions seem too glamorous.
In fact the film manages both to clarify and make vividly real the sense of a holy war or struggle that young people felt at the time, and to show that these extremists were not simply the vicious killers they had been demonized to be; but also to demonstrate that their ideals and imperfections led to horrific actions, that in many cases destroyed lives without having any clear outcome that could possibly motivate or justify such violence. I was very young at the time of these events and only remember vague hints of them, but even now going into the film I knew very little of the details. Definitely worth watching -- both as a valuable history lesson, and as a spur to the kinds of discussions that we need to be having about the meaning and motivations of what we call "terrorism." As the German head of police, played in this film by the always excellent Bruno Ganz, suggests: it is easy enough to demonize the "enemy" but there can be no true or lasting victory over extremism and violence without understanding its perpetrators and their perceptions.
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