The Weather Underground succeeds where no German film dealing with this period has. German political violence shared themes, lifestyles, illusions and ideals with those of the Weathermen. Groups like the Rote Armee Fraktion however crossed over into leading a violent and murderous uprising against the post-war German state and social order. German society would have all the more reason to revisit this period to gain historical insight and hindsight. The recent high profile attempt at this, Baader-Meinhof Complex, is regrettably shallow and embarrassing. Taking a good look at this film would be a step in the right direction.
Green and Siegel, despite their obvious sympathy for the material, do not try and finish the narrative of their protagonists. The film allows each of the figures to represent as much of their story as they can relate to. From the intact and defiant self-understanding of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, to the confusion of Brian Flanagan, or the horrific outcome for former SDS luminary, David Gilbert, whose earliest scheduled release from prison is in 2056. There is no doubt that the Weather Underground failed to relate to the political reality of the period. They were instrumentalized by agent provocateurs from COINTELPRO, fragmented and distorted the SDS, and are part of the global discreditation that political radicalism of the period is subjected to. Their emancipatory narcissism serves as a lesson for the inadequacy of bourgeois subjectivity to actually bridge the gap into some form of normative or justice alterity. Their individual liberation meant exploring the limits of their subjectivity, drugs, violence, sex as a never ending hysteria of self-aggrandization. As much as the unbroken characteristic of some of the figure rings true, there is something out of joint about it. It is as if they never learned that their path produced so much suffering because it was not about the people for whom they held themselves out to represent. This becomes painfully clear in the footage where the Black Panthers, who were reeling under the full force of their leaders being serially murdered by law enforcement agents, rejected the Weathermen's violence and political superficiality.
At the same time, we are invited to understand the depth of their motivation and their willingness to sacrifice. Additionally, the film takes pains to take up to an important task. It represents the contradictions of the historical moment that made such subjective distortions inevitable. Green and Siegel succeed in bringing us into the deep tragedy that the Weathermen stand for, a society so failed that self-immolation appeared for some to be the only method of self-recognition. It is the portrayal of a lose-lose situation that marks the impoverishment of the concept of the emancipatory into the present.
Green and Siegel, despite their obvious sympathy for the material, do not try and finish the narrative of their protagonists. The film allows each of the figures to represent as much of their story as they can relate to. From the intact and defiant self-understanding of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, to the confusion of Brian Flanagan, or the horrific outcome for former SDS luminary, David Gilbert, whose earliest scheduled release from prison is in 2056. There is no doubt that the Weather Underground failed to relate to the political reality of the period. They were instrumentalized by agent provocateurs from COINTELPRO, fragmented and distorted the SDS, and are part of the global discreditation that political radicalism of the period is subjected to. Their emancipatory narcissism serves as a lesson for the inadequacy of bourgeois subjectivity to actually bridge the gap into some form of normative or justice alterity. Their individual liberation meant exploring the limits of their subjectivity, drugs, violence, sex as a never ending hysteria of self-aggrandization. As much as the unbroken characteristic of some of the figure rings true, there is something out of joint about it. It is as if they never learned that their path produced so much suffering because it was not about the people for whom they held themselves out to represent. This becomes painfully clear in the footage where the Black Panthers, who were reeling under the full force of their leaders being serially murdered by law enforcement agents, rejected the Weathermen's violence and political superficiality.
At the same time, we are invited to understand the depth of their motivation and their willingness to sacrifice. Additionally, the film takes pains to take up to an important task. It represents the contradictions of the historical moment that made such subjective distortions inevitable. Green and Siegel succeed in bringing us into the deep tragedy that the Weathermen stand for, a society so failed that self-immolation appeared for some to be the only method of self-recognition. It is the portrayal of a lose-lose situation that marks the impoverishment of the concept of the emancipatory into the present.