THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX (2008) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Uli Edel
Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu, Johanna Vokalek,
Jan Josef Liefers, Nadja Uhl, Alexandra Maria Lara,
Stipe Erceg, Sebastian Blomberg, Bruno Ganz
A narrative feature that meticulously recreates the activities of the Red Army Faction. or Baader Meinhof Gang, in the wave of terror that swept Germany in the '60s and '70s. What's striking, apart from its you-are-there realism, is that the film doesn't really take sides. Edel leaves that up to the viewer. The issues that inflame the terrorists are legitimate, but their tactics are literally murder. The government official supervising the manhunt to track them down knows they have to be stopped, but recognizes that to do that, it's important to understand not just what these people are doing, but why. Much of the movie was shot in the exact locations where the events took place, and the actors bear a striking resemblance to their real-life counterparts. When somebody geta clubbed or shot or a car bomb explodes, it doesn't look staged. It looks real. It's finally a movie about people so obsessed with the rightness of their cause that they can't - or won't - see the evil of their own behavior. And an eternal truth: The more zealous people are in their devotion to a political philosophy, the less likely they are to tolerate anybody else.
