The Baader Meinhof Complex

(2008)
I had read the book that this film was largely based on, about a group of militant radicals in Germany in the late 60s and early 70s. Naturally no film can delve into the depth of a book, but the importance of the subject matter and frankly, its sensationalist appeal make an attempt at a film a worthy endeavor. Though Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck) and Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtrau) formed the ideological core of the group, Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek) was a crucial member as well. The three of them among others, here not so fully developed as the leads were inspired by student protests in the late 60s and splintered off to form a radical terrorist organization whose activities included bombings, kidnappings, and bank robberies. The film takes great pains, as the book did, to tell both sides of the story; these are no simple black-hat anarchists, and the government arent simply soulless suits. These are real people on both sides of the conflict (although here, as in the book, you get the sense that Baader was a complete asshole): Ulrike must decide whether a life living underground all the time is worth never seeing her children again; her friends must decide whether to abandon or support her; and even the members of the government shown must be careful to balance their attempts to stop the terrorism without coming down too heavy-handed. Unlike most of these types of stories, youd think the capture of the ringleaders would be where the story ends, but thats where the tale of Baader, Mienhof and the other takes a surreal turn. They are treated with considerable leniency in jail some do stints in solitary, but mostly they are given TVs and radios (the book details how they used a phonograph to pass messages to one another) and treated almost more like unruly dorm students than terrorists and naturally, in confinement, such rebellious types turn on one another. The film offers no easy answers about who is right and who is wrong and neither did the book; both involve themselves more with trying to tell the complete story. Which is laudable, but can make for a frustrating movie in spots. There are a lot of characters in the terrorist cell, and while we are shown the origins of the big three, after that Nordic faces come and go with little explanation (Brigitte Mohnhaupt played by Nadja Uhl gets considerable screen time as the de facto leader of the band after the top rung are all captured in jail, but we never know what drove her to this life or what motivates her). The films painstaking desire for balance leads it to be more thoughtful and nuanced than it might be otherwise, but none of the terrorists seem the least bit sorry for the harming of innocent lives (though Baader and Ensslin distance themselves from any attacks carried out while they are in prison that are aimed at civilians). What you have, in the end, is a group of people with some legitimate grievances against the way their government acts who choose to follow very unreasonable paths of action to get the government to listen; and it is that contradiction that both the book and the movie strive so hard to capture.

The acting is all excellent. You dont like these people (or at least I didnt), but at least the top three and Brigitte are all fleshed out humans with fears and hatreds and breaking points. Theyre not very pleasant to spend much time with die-hard revolutionaries rarely are but they are fascinating to watch, and Gedeck, Bleibtrau, Wokalek and Uhl should all be given high marks for excellent performances. Likewise the attention to detail and capturing the look and feel of the late sixties and seventies is extremely well done; you get absorbed in the period very quickly. Its a very well-done film, though Im not sure the subject matter will appeal to everyone, and the fact that none of these people is really embraceable they werent in real life either can sometimes begin to grate. But the film is certainly worth a look, both informative and intriguing. August 20, 2012