Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (2008) Reviews

• Necessary

  Liedzeit2008-10-04

  First of all this is a very important film. Just like the other "Big" film by Eichinger "Der Untergang" it confronts the German audience (and the world should it care) with some aspect of German history that people should know about. In this case the "myth" of the RAF. To everyone who lived through the seventies in Germany it is clear that the influence of the RAF on Germany can hardly be exaggerated. I was a kid but my impression at the time was that both sides were wrong. There was a constant fear of terror coming from the terrorists but also from the state. (People did not get jobs if it was suspected they were "left".) So to make a blockbuster film, even if it does not really explain the motives of the main characters involved, at least gives us some facts. Not everyone is prepared to watch documentaries or read the book by Aust, but everyone should have some thoughts or maybe discussions on the subject. Okay, but does it succeed as a film? Not entirely. The actors as everyone agrees were excellent, the cinematography as well. You do think you are in the seventies. That in itself is amazing. The action scenes are done splendidly, especially at the beginning the riots during the visit of the Persian Shah which culminated in the shooting of a student which in turn was, at least to some extent, the origin of the rise of terror. Of course the film is episodic and there are too many characters in it, most of them are not introduced in any way and ten years of complex history cannot be told in an altogether satisfying way. But the film succeeds in giving us a sense of what was going on. The producer, Bernd Eichinger has been accused of vanity. Which is a funny thing. Of course, he is vain. He has the duty to be vain as long as he also feels a responsibility to make movies that try to tell something. And the challenge, he feels, is to say it to as many people as possible.

• Better than most critics want to admit

  ChrisWasser2008-09-30

  I agree with the other comments on the following points: the film does indeed concentrate on the culprits and their actions in a documentary way (as opposed to an interpretation of the RAF's ideas and motivations from a clear-cut political standpoint). Although the victims DO appear they are not characterized more closely; the only representative of the state is Horst Herold (head of the BKA), politicians do not show up at all, the media appear only in the shape of Springer, konkret and Spiegel and even the lawyers (Haag, Croissant, Schily, Ströbele, etc.) are merged into only one (fictitious?) character. I for one do agree with this approach and if you are prepared for it you probably can live with it too. In any case, despite all the chases, shootouts and explosions it hasn't become a mere action-film. What's more problematic is that the film follows the book by Stefan Aust VERY closely. Therefore the dramaturgy is more similar to "real life" than to a classical feature film (e.g. there are many changes in pace, several climaxes are distributed over the course of the film and a proper arc of suspense is somewhat missing). "Fortunately" real life offered a culmination of events with the Schleyer kidnapping in the "German Autumn" 1977, so that the film ends in a reasonably satisfying way. Nevertheless the end credits come a little abruptly. The second problem is that the film tries to show virtually ALL events from the book (only some minor incidents like the Mahler detention, Peter Urbach, the burglaries in registration offices in order to steal blank passports or the visit of Jean-Paul Sartre in Stammheim are missing) so that it needs to squeeze 10 years of history into 140 minutes. The result is a film with breakneck speed at some points. The better scenes (e.g. the training camp in Jordan or the lawsuit in Stammheim) are obviously those where the film catches breath, calms down and takes its time for the actors to shine. The quality of the acting ranges from good to fantastic (with very few exceptions like Alexandra Maria Lara, who is nothing more than wide-eyed again and who thankfully doesn't even have dialogue). Especially Martina Gedeck and Johanna Wokalek are sensational. It is THEIR film and the conflicts in Stammheim which led to Meinhof's suicide are acted Oscar-worthy. But Michael Gwisdek (Ensslin's father), Jan Josef Liefers (Peter Homann), Sebastian Blomberg (Rudi Dutschke), Nadja Uhl (Brigitte Mohnhaupt) and Hannah Herzsprung (Susanne Albrecht) are also very good. The production values are excellent too. A lot of locations, a great deal of main and supporting roles, hundreds of extras, good special effects (mainly explosions) and a set design and costume design which creates a very coherent 70's atmosphere: you can see that the film cost a lot of money. Every cent is on the screen. I didn't like the choice of music that much. Deep Purple's "Child in Time" is always great to hear, but the rest (Janis Joplin, The Who, Bob Dylan) is just too mainstreamy and unimaginative for my taste (but probably also very expensive). Why not use MC5, Ton Steine Scherben or Ennio Morricone's "Vamos a matar, companeros"? Now I'm looking forward to the reactions and reviews from other countries, who probably don't know this part of German history very well. In the US I expect the criticism that there are too many naked people, too many swear words and even more cigarettes (every one in BMK smokes everywhere and at all times), in order to distract from the politics of the film ;-) "Der Baader Meinhof Komplex" isn't the masterpiece on the history of the first generation of the RAF that I had hoped for in my comments on "Todesspiel", but altogether it is a very suspenseful, fascinating, densely narrated and well acted film. Hopefully it will not be the last word on the subject, but it succeeds in giving the audience the basic RAF knowledge on which future (less neutral, more opinionated) movies can build their stories.

• A cautionary tale

  Michael Fargo2009-09-05

  It's not insignificant that this story reaches us at this time. Reactionary movements are all around us, some linked to the events (and there are many events depicted here) in the film. This is the opposite of Oliver Hirschbiegel's static, embalmed "Downfall," the recreation of Hitler's last days. Uli Edel takes Stefan Aust's book and infuses it with kinetic energy. It's one of the best uses of montage in recent cinema and the sound design fits in squarely with the sophisticated visuals and elaborate re-staging of the crimes of the Baader-Meinhoff gang, aka, The Red Army Faction. I saw this film just after watching Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock," a very different evocation of a turbulent era. Equally successful here is the recreation of a revolutionary time where everyone seemed to be fighting against something and to be fair, there was a lot to argue rightly about changing. It all came down to the methods one used, and using the guilt of post Nazi Germany, the Baader-Meinhoff gang became delusional and grandiose in their "methods" of social change. "Urban guerrilla" was the fashionable name at the time, today we call it terrorism. The film doesn't bother to weigh whether anything legitimate was anyone's goal. It opens with a stunning set piece at a demonstration against the Shah of Iran and a riot that pits Right Wing elements against Leftists. As the violence escalates, there are several tracking shots ahead of charging mounted police on horseback that is so electrifying, I sat there wondering, "Can this film top that opening?" Well, it does. It holds the interest of the audience through a very complex series of robberies, bombings and kidnappings. I was reminded of "The French Connection" in the use of sheer excitement to keep an audience engaged in a very elaborate political movement that terrorized Europe for nearly a decade (at least the cast of characters depicted in this film; activities of the group are still—arguably—alive). Some have argued that the focus of the film on the crimes of the group glorify them, but no more than, say, the Barrow gang was elevated in Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde." We're given Baader and Meinhof's dialectic, but we're clearly watching psychotic/psychopathic people; and no one can deny they had a following. It's a long film, but I think it's very efficient in the story it tells. Over two and a half hours, I can't think of any scene or crime that should have been cut. As well, the film is full of dialog and the English titles require you to miss a great deal of what's visually on the screen. I plan to see it twice as a result. Huge rallies and set pieces are recreated. The only documentary footage that I recognized was from the Munich Olympics. Sobering in its account, there are many lessons we still need to learn from these events. I was reminded of one of Leonard Cohen's lyrics: "I've seen the future and, brother, it is murder." Let's hope these methods are in the past and not our future. We need to ensure that.

• What you see is what you get (nothing more)

  alexandermangoldt2008-10-11

  I watched the movie at a teacher's screening in Wuppertal on a Sunday morning. I was quite impressed with the accurate and detailed portrayal of the RAF and the events of the so called 'German fall' (Deutscher Herbst). I myself knew of many of the events beforehand and thanks to documentaries such as Veiel's Black Box BRD and Breloer's Todesspiel I was able to compare. For the two and some hours that the movie lasted I was on the edge of my seat. None of the scenes were boring, everything was well paced (at times maybe a little too fast paced) and I felt like I was being taken back to the important past of my native country. However, at the end I felt a little empty. The documentaries I just mentioned focused on only one story, but these documentaries were better because they gave us an in-depth analysis of the opposing forces (the bourgeoisie, the elite and the socialist rebels). The portrayal of Meinhof and Baader seems accurate, too, but often I wondered if Baader really was the small-time crook he's made out to be in the movie. Except for Meinhof and Ensslin nobody seems to have some really deep thoughts about what was (is) wrong with our society. Mohnhaupt played by Nadja Uhl isn't explained at all, she's just there all of a sudden and we just go along thinking that she is in it for the same reasons as everybody else (Which are???).That way the movie seemed a little biased, as if trying to tell us that the RAF was mainly criminal and not so much political. Although I believe that a lot of their motives were right, even though they didn't justify any of the actions. Bruno Ganz as Herold is allowed to play his character in a way that everyone thinks of the German government at the time as a dignified and moderate administration although I don't believe that to be true (after all, Herold said that he can only cure the symptoms of the RAF disease but not the disease itself, yet he didn't do anything to make the German people understand that the RAF is not altogether wrong when it accuses the German people of laziness, cowardice and complacency). Now, leaving the movie, I figured that there was nothing much left to talk about. The teacher material that we received was pretty useless, because it doesn't offer any interesting topics for discussion. I for one think it would be interesting to discuss the present situation (bureaucracy, war in Iraq, terrorism) with the situation of Germany in the 70's. We are still dealing with many of the problems that caused the insurgency and civil disobedience back then, yet today we don't do anything at all. We are dissatisfied with the Bush administration, we oppose the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we suffer from a financial crisis mainly caused by the deregulated free market economy (capitalism) and we watch the divide between the rich and the poor getting bigger and bigger. However, the youth of today doesn't protest. Why not? Maybe because we taught them well that in the end it's everyone for themselves and that it's best to be obedient, docile and commonorgarden if you want at least a little security in your life. One of the stronger scenes was the one where Ensslin accuses Meinhof of jerking off on her socialist theories instead of actually doing something. That's where you can see how Meinhof was influenced by the RAF. Finally she met some people who were willing to take action instead of just talking and philosophizing about a better world. This scene lends itself well to the follow-up scene in which Meinhof helps Baader to escape from prison. The jump from the window sill is a the same time a jump towards extremism. Well, all in all, I think it's a good film to get people interested in Germany's past but it can only be the beginning of a more subtle analysis of what the RAF stood for and what it was trying to do.

• Entertaining but Somewhat Empty

  K2nsl3r2008-09-29

  This film captures much of the historical tensions that existed in 60s-70s Germany (and world at large) by focusing on one of its most visible "phenomena", the so-called Baader-Meinhof Gang, which was also called, even beyond the reign of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, the Rote Armee Fraktion or RAF. The struggle between left-wing terrorists and the established political and state apparatus, mediated through the perception of the masses via mutual propaganda, makes for an interesting story and an important saga in Europe's confrontation with the limits of liberal democracy, and of the populace's flirtation with bloody acts of terror. This film tells the story in its crude general details, in the course of about 2½ hours. It focuses largely on three figures: Andreas Baader (portrayed as a rash control freak), Ulrike Meinhof (shown first as a timid reported and later a ruthless organizer of violence) and Gudrun Ensslin (the lover of Baader and a determined fanatic). Many minor characters pop in and out, and at least 4 or 5 countries are visited in the course of the group's exile and international reach. Many shots are fired, many bombs exploded, many victims ("guilty" and "innocent") assassinated, and many plans hatched and botched. Overall, the film does a pretty good job at carrying the story forward at a rapid pace. At no point did I lose touch of the essentials of what's going on. I found the movie to be eminently easy to follow and a pleasure to watch. The best part of the movie is the first half, or maybe first two-thirds, during which time the focus in on the sympathetic figureheads (Baader, Meinhof, Ensslin). By the time they are in prison, the story is driven (as it was in real life) by a new generation of fighters, who are comparably less interesting and whose motivations remain a mystery. Not only that, but I thought that the ending of the movie was highly unsatisfactory. The last half an hour of the film is a real mess. It's not catastrophic, but it's still a huge step-down from the well-paced storytelling of the rest of the movie. Now, the movie can easily be faulted for being a superficial exercise in crowd pleasing. It focuses only on the barest of motivational factors. It doesn't care for depth or subtlety. People are portrayed as one-dimensional and events flash by so fast that we don't have time to reflect on what we see. Action is favored over thought (but maybe this aptly represents RAF's philosophy?): there are chase scenes, gun fights, bombings, sieges and a few orgies. Overall, the movie is a loud exercise in simplistic historical narrative. For example, we get the obligatory news reels of Nixon, MLK, the War in Vietnam and the student riots of '68... There's nothing new to be seen or heard here. Not even the actions of the Baader-Meinhof Gruppe itself are explicated beyond what everybody who has read anything about the group already knows. Still, there are many things that speak on behalf of the movie. For one, all the actors do a very fine job indeed. From Bruno Ganz as the head of the police hunt to all the youthful and anarchic terrorists, the cast carries the film from beginning to end. Martina Gedeck as Ulrike Meinhof does an excellent job, and her character has also been given the most depth and complexity of all the RAF members. There are a few caricatures, but mostly the failures of character development in the movie have to do with the lack of time given to each character on screen. As others have pointed out, the sheer massiveness of the scale of events and the extensiveness of the timeline means that the movie cannot delve into any particular aspect of the story at any length. The actors do a fine job, however, and all the sets look authentic: the mass rallies organized by Rudi Dutschke and the violent demonstrations between the students and the cops (all very early in the film) are very effective in depicting the mood and reality of the era. The beating of the students is a harrowing image that leaves nothing for imagination. Speaking of the conflict between authority and rebellion, I think that the true strength of this film is precisely in its non-ideological and non-preachy tone. It offers a certain amount of reciprocal faulting between the pro- and anti-Baader-Meinhofians, and it certainly condemns the anti-civilian actions of the group, but it gives Bruno Ganz a few definite lines that summarize the essence of the conflict - something to the effect that "even while condemning, you have to understand the real causes of terrorism". This sentiment, while hardly new or deep, is an important one in a movie that otherwise could have been turned either into a Bonnie and Clyde romance or an exercise in retrospective character assassination. And make no mistake, all these people are portrayed in less than flattering light. Still, some amount of humanity is allowed to shine through, and this is what makes the movie SLIGHTLY more than just another empty gesture in the perpetuation of a historical mythos. It is an entertaining, and very well made movie which doesn't offer much depth but, in its simplicity and straightforwardness, offers material in its pure density and lets the audience make up its own mind... Too bad that it ends so suddenly and unsatisfactorily as it does. That's a shame, because the movie could have been great. Now it's only entertaining.