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.
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.