Not a great movie, but a great story. This film is a semi-fictional account of the decade of existence of the German Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader Meinhof Group after its two leaders. The account is fictional in that almost all the dialogue is imagined, but it is based on a well-regarded book written by one of the peripheral figures in the RAF who subsequently became disgruntled. The events and outcomes that it depicts are real. The film takes its time bringing its characters together, then rushes through the early 1970s when most of the RAF bombings and attacks took place, before slowing down to examine in detail the last two months in the lives of the RAF leaders, the kidnapping of Hans-Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of a Lufthansa plane (which eventually led to the rescue of the passengers at Mogadishu).
It is particularly interesting to watch this film so soon after Il Divo. There was a close parallelism between the German and Italian far left terrorist cells. Both saw their campaigns culminate in the kidnapping of a prominent establishment figure at almost the same time (1977-78). Il Divo begins with the Aldo Moro kidnapping (which so haunted Andreotti) while B-M Complex ends with the Schleyer kidnapping.
This film is nowhere near as interesting as Il Divo in its construction. The storytelling is straightforward. Much of the tension is manufactured. The soundtrack is intrusive. But it does capture the period very well, and it is intensely talky. The real intent of the film is to try to get into the heads of the RAF leaders, to figure out what would possess young, educated Germans to so totally lose faith in the system that they would launch a domestic bombing campaign. So we get endless debates and arguments between the protagonists about what is legitimate and what is not. I found it fascinating but many might not share my love of arcane debates about Left strategy.
Some things are done very well, particularly a very early scene in which protesters at a state visit for the Shah of Iran are brutally beaten by police and supporters of the Shah. Some of the courtroom scenes late in the film capture the absurdist quality of the trial of the group’s leaders. The acting is so-so. Martina Gedeck as Ulrike Meinhof is very good at portraying the simultaneous reluctance but also thrill of being a journalist, mother and social critic offered a chance to move outside the law and her safe bourgeois society role. Bruno Ganz, as the spy chief, has few scenes but is superb in all of them. The others, particularly Mortiz Bleibtreu as Andreas Baader are caricatures. But for all its weaknesses, this is well worth seeing.
I’ve watched a number of films, both documentaries and fictionalized narratives, about the 1970s youth radicals, but nothing has as profound an effect as the SLA tape recordings played at the end of the documentary Guerilla . What sad humorless stupidity. “Field Marshall,” indeed. And yet when you look at the spectacle of the oligarchy running the country and the weak figure we currently identify with “change,” can anybody say they don’t understand the anger that moved these people?
Humorless, indeed–there’s a very dry incisive wit behind the camera for Baader Meinhof, most visible during the opening 15 minutes (see below). But for the most part the film rushes along, as Chris notes, intriguingly skirting the surface of events and debates between zealots. I found the politics of their argument interesting insofar as it seemed entirely theological, almost divorced from the social and the rhetorical, entirely concerned with the proper theoretical focus for each action; I could imagine monks debating angels on pinheads, rabbis or reverends or imams raging about some fine point of textual arcana and its implications.
The only pleasure you ever see these guys take in their actions is early on, speeding on the autobahn in two mock-duelling cars, guns firing. Baader (Bleibtreu) often wears a sardonic grin, but I agree with Chris–it’s almost like a stage direction (he flashes a sardonic grin) rather than something illustrative of character. That’s probably my biggest complaint: there is little here to illustrate character. That is the film’s strength and its great failing.
Those first 15 minutes are really great, intriguing — we see a nudist beach, some haute-bourgeois party, Ulrike Meinhof’s eyes registering her critical dislocation from these surroundings. There’s a great bit where she reads an editorial for her & her husband’s magazine, slamming the Shah, to this narcissistic wealthy spoiled crowd — everyone somewhat dazed by this intrusion of politics. And I thought the film was going to be a fairly vicious critique of the politics of the era. Then we cut to the Shah’s arrival, a large staged “welcome” and a corollary vocal protest. Some pranksters drive by with paper bags on their heads, sketches of the Shah and his wife markered on, waving — the protesters cheer. But as the real Shah arrives, as a contingent of Iranians supporting the Shah arrive with counter-signs, tension starts to build–all this yelling begins to turn more aggressive, and the Iranian group (surely hired thugs) break their signs and begin beating the shit out of the bourgie protesters. And the film follows this violence, as the police first watch with detachment then join in the vicious assault on this non-violent crowd, for what felt like 5 minutes. You don’t really have a sense of characters in the crowd–director Edel just follows this runner down the street, batons raining down on his head, then that protestor beaten down over there, then that one, then that one. It goes on for quite a while–it’s viscerally provocative, but unsensational–there’s no pleasure, no aesthetic spin.
That opening really interested me. It was as if Edel was going to show a social divide–a depiction of deep social and political aggressions–by glancing rigorously over the surface of the divide. We don’t get charismatic leaders, we don’t see heroes or villains per se (‘though later we do follow much more intensively the paths of a few key characters). Instead, the goal seems to be distill and depict the tensions which motivated the political unrest and savagery, to see radicalism without getting seduced by the radicals. So the endless debating of these characters is almost purposefully off-putting. Or, rather, it’s all talk–we don’t get caught up with the people, really. They’re ciphers–Ulrike Meinhof the only really intriguing cipher.
I did appreciate the film, and I think that effort–which I’ve described poorly–is interesting. But the movie seemed too surface-level to me, not glossy but nonetheless glossing the issues. I suppose there’s something in the style which complements that politics. It’s almost inhumanly concerned just with act and its rationale. There’s no attempt to do more than show us how such acts might be engendered by social context, and the unseductive limits of the rationalizations.
Does that make sense, Chris, Michael? I recall a book by Susan Choi about Patty Hearst, a novel called _American Woman_ which does a better job (for me) laying out the limits of that approach to politics but also digs deeper into why and how such politics takes root and grows.
great remarks, Mike. I also have a novel called Trance about the SLA though I haven’t yet read it. There’s a long scene in Dostoevsky’s The Possessed that involves a debate between the different socialist/radical factions; I haven’t seen anything better in capturing the emotional investment of the various representatives in fine points of doctrine. I believe Tom Stoppard recently wrote a play concerning these different factions in 19th century Russia, though I don’t know it. Now, we no longer have these extreme doctrinaires, but it seems we no longer have any effective radicalism whatsoever. “Death to the fascist insect, etc. etc.”
I think that you are right Mike. What you describe seems to be a feature of movies that are interested in capturing moments of intense political debate on the Left. The discussion of collective farms in Land and Freedom, and of revolutionary justice in The Wind that Shakes the Barley come to mind (of course, those are both Loach, so it is probably more a feature of his style than the political genre itself).
But in both cases, as with Baader Meinhof Complex, a deliberate choice is made to foreground the political debate by treating those speaking the lines as ciphers. It is almost as though the directors fear that a full character portrait would lead the audience to privilege personal background and motivation as a driver of political action rather than the logic of the political situation itself. Given the fact that the vast majority of supposedly political films do indeed bury the politics beneath the human drama of love, betrayal and so on, I can understand the choice. Far too often, films portray political action as a more or less accidental byproduct of some part of a lead character’s upbringing and experience.
For that reason, I can appreciate Edel’s determination to prevent us from ignoring the political debates and or attributing the RAF’s actions to jealousies over boyfriends and girlfriends, or stern parents, or whatever. But the result is exactly the flatness that Mike describes.
So the obvious question: which political films do it better? And a secondary question: are there political films about political debates on the Right?
I should probably specify more. By political film, I really mean a film that takes ideology, and ideological debate, seriously. There are countless excellent political thrillers (though the American remake of ‘State of Play’ is not one of them), but very, very few of them are concerned with ideology, as opposed to naked power.
simon and i just saw this and really loved it, so i’m a bit surprised at the lack of enthusiasm on the part of chris and mike (did you ever watch it, michael?). the flatness that so bothers mike and chris seems a total plus to me, for the reasons chris describes in comment 4. it seems to me the characters are perfectly fleshed out for the function they are called on to fulfill. ciphers? maybe, but that’s just fine for this kind of film.
what struck me most forcefully is the analysis of how this kind of “revolution†function. i’m no expert in revolutions of any kind and i’m sure you guys can run circles around me on this one (please, do!), but here are some reflections. in fact, i’m just going to elaborate on what michael says in comment 1, which seems to me very astute.
yes, great stupidity, and humorlessness, and lots of taking themselves very seriously. director edel, it seems to me, does a great job of capturing just that — in the fake, joyless laughter of that car race on the autobahn and above all in the hysterical shenanigans of andreas baader. but i remember those times: i was young but it was still part of my life, because those conversations were happening in the schools and especially in the parishes — oh, what a great role young priests played at that time, gathering wannabe revolutionaries and giving them space to talk their heads off without blowing themselves up; can this still happen in italian parishes? i’d be surprised.
me, i was never quite able to take part in those conversations because i couldn’t take that stuff seriously enough, or maybe i couldn’t take the silliness and the seriousness combined in the unholy alliance edel depicts so well. it was too chaotic, disorganized and ultimately meaningless to me.
it’s all captured very well in the sequence that depicts our RAF boys and girls in palestine. the wasting of ammunition — what a perfectly nailed detail. this is the stuff that didn’t make sense to me. we didn’t have ammunition (god forbid, we were just kids), but it was hard for me to talk about occupying a school in between sexual jokes and high jinks. endless wasted hours. lots of smoke.
the “theological” conversations chris and mike depict remind me very much of those conversations. in the film, it is never clear to me exactly what those kids are talking about. the only one that makes any sense is ulrike meinhoff: she tries to keep the doctrine together, tight, and inevitably isolates herself. i love the moments when the camera dwells on her sad face. she is surrounded by stupid, uncontrollable children.
mostly, though, it’s not clear, at least at first, what those kids are so angry about. vietnam? the shah? huh? their fight is not as vital as the fight of the palestinian terrorists in the training camp or even that of the vietnam-protesting americans. these are privileged kids who are angry because the entire youth of europe is angry. it’s a contagious, exciting anger.
then it all becomes very serious. the establishment makes it serious by taking it seriously and coming down on it hard. guess who’s humorless now. the moment you counterattack, you give the kids a purpose, a real enemy, a real oppressor with a real face and easy-to-spot uniforms.
so this is how these “revolutions†work: by starting silly, then becoming very serious the moment they are legitimated by a violent, authoritarian response.
michael again: “And yet when you look at the spectacle of the oligarchy running the country and the weak figure we currently identify with “change,†can anybody say they don’t understand the anger that moved these people?”
i so understand it. i understand it so much.
it is fascinating to watch this film at this time, when julian assange and his little coterie of volunteers are causing the oppressive powers of the world to pull out all the stops to fight his little cyber revolution (no quotation marks here). i love assange’s cyber revolution. he is using the most effective weapon we have now — not bombs but information — and turning our governments’ silliness against them. how many stupid things is the US government trying to control with its taxpayers’ money? power seems to be its own monster. no detail can be left to chance. the extension of the machinery of power is ming-boggling. why on earth is the state department asking its diplomats to collect the DNA of african leaders and even of the UN secretary general?!? what use can they possibly have for it?
the assange-wikileaks complex is such fantastic theater, the RAF kids would have been proud. no ammunition wasted. just take the enemy’s bullets in the form of profoundly embarrassing cables and put them on the internet (simon sez: turn bullets into bullet points!). aesthetic brilliance.
I liked BMC a great deal, and I hope my commentary indicated that. It beautifully captured a time period, and a style of politics that I remember quite well. My compliant was only that, having just watched Il Divo, which is marvelously inventive, I didn’t think BMC broke any new cinematic ground. It foregrounds the political debate to such a degree that everything else fades into the background and becomes flat or caricatured. I respect that choice — not least because it is so rare — but, as I said, I think it makes for a better story than film.
I wonder if the RAF kids, and whatever is left of that strand of politics, would be proud of WikiLeaks. Part of what drove them was the need to personally put their lives on the line; the violence was not just a means to an end; it was a statement of personal commitment to the cause. There is something bloodless about sitting behind a computer terminal, for good or evil, that would, I think, have struck the privileged revolutionaries of the 1970s as insufficiently authentic.
The goal of the violence was also to provoke the state into acts of greater repression, so as to indicate to the great mass of people its true nature. The US and its allies have already begun the counterattack on WikiLeaks (I find this rape charge deeply suspicious in its timing, though I doubt Assange is a saint), but that response (closing server access, limiting access to funding) will not likely have the same effect on the mass public that Italian and German levels of emergency legislation and repression had in the late 1970s.
By coincidence, my older son took the SATs yesterday. The essay prompt was to ask whether there are any heroes left. He responded that today, heroes are collective rather than individual, and cited Doctors without Borders and WikiLeaks as his examples. Clearly some people are inspired by what Assange is doing.
kudos to your son!
clearly, i have to watch il divo. i remember you (i think) asking for my opinion about it about 2 years ago!
i think the wikileaks kids (and bradley manning) are risking their lives in a very real way. the italian and german terrorists got out of jail in single digit years, and were treated very humanely (i met several of them after they had stopped being terrorists). they were able to reintegrate without any problem. i doubt the same will happen to bradley manning, and i seriously doubt assange will be able to breathe freely any time soon.
repression in the US today is not only conducted with batons, tear gas, pepper spray, jail, and torture, but also with massive and systemic deprivation of civil and human rights. think of the fact that the B-M kids could ask, and obtain, open doors, then think of our prison system now (and i’m not even talking about terrorists). neli latson, an autistic black 18 year old who was arrested because someone called the cops on him while he was waiting for the library to open, ran away when the cops arrived and, terrified, “resisted arrest.” he has been kept in solitary confinement for months. all over the country, police use pepper spray and mace on children in schools, for reasons including not tucking in their shirts and smoking.
the repression of the italian government in the 70s is child’s play compared to the daily repression of this government. i stand by my judgment that the B-M kids would be proud of julian assange — well, maybe not andreas baader, but certainly ulrike meinhoff!
Departures, which i watched last night, won the oscar for best foreign film over B-M, The Class, Revance, and the absolutely fabulous Waltz with Bashir. my guess is that the academy was so overwhelmed by the fabulousness of the other four movies, they had to pick the one that was the weakest BY FAR.