How entertaining? ★★★★★
Thought provoking? ★★★☆☆ 26 April 2009
This a movie review of THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX. |
“Stop seeing them the way they weren't,” Brigitte
From Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz playing over the brief opening credits, we head straight to a nudist beach and then to a brutal police suppression of a student demonstration, this excellent film never lets up until Bob Dylan’s distinctive drawl on Blowin’ in the Wind.
THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX is part of a trio of ambitious political epics, which include CHÉ and IL DIVO, that have hit the UK in the last six months, and all reinforce the faith in the silver screen’s ability to succinctly introduce complex subject matter in non-documentary form. Forget superficial wasted opportunities FROST/NIXON and W. these are the real deal.
From Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz playing over the brief opening credits, we head straight to a nudist beach and then to a brutal police suppression of a student demonstration, this excellent film never lets up until Bob Dylan’s distinctive drawl on Blowin’ in the Wind.
THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX is part of a trio of ambitious political epics, which include CHÉ and IL DIVO, that have hit the UK in the last six months, and all reinforce the faith in the silver screen’s ability to succinctly introduce complex subject matter in non-documentary form. Forget superficial wasted opportunities FROST/NIXON and W. these are the real deal.
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The writer-producer Bernd Eichinger and director-co-writer Uli Edel have fashioned with efficiency and economy a decade spanning (1967 to 1977) picture covering and contextualising a violent and turbulent period of West Germany’s and international history (Vietnamese death, Ché Guevera’s murder, and the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy) in about two hours twenty minutes. No mean feat. They have tried to analyse events and characters that combined to create a left wing organisation, The Red Army Faction who were lead by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, which felt violence was the only option in altering society to match its ideals.
There is a non-judgmental tone, instead a portrayal of arguments, events and people without spoon-feeding, so that an audience can explore for themselves the themes raised of social justice, disillusionment, self-delusion and political methodology.
The movie contains a who’s who of German cinema: Moritz Bleibtreu (RUN LOLA RUN), Martina Gedeck (THE LIVES OF OTHERS), Alexandra Maria Lara (MIRACLE IN ST. ANNA) and Bruno Ganz (DOWNFALL). All working on charisma overload, together with exceedingly skilful filmmaking, to produce a masterful example of historical ensemble storytelling.