DVD review: The Baader Meinhof Complex

Published on Wednesday 15 April 2009 17:27

Momentum, £17.60

IT'S DIFFICULT TO THINK OF another terrorist movement with a public image more ready-made for cinematic exploitation than the Baader-Meinhof gang. The German anarchist group, which would later mutate into the Red Army Faction, may have been responsible for a series of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and bank robberies in the late 1960s and 1970s, but thanks to their relative youth, sexiness and now-vintage clothing, they've since become radical chic fashion icons. Often dubbed Prada-Meinhof, their image has been adopted and celebrated by unthinking pop stars, designers and advertisers who see a fast buck in marketing a twisted idea of cool far removed from the violent consequences of the group's actions. To put it another way: the group has just the right mix of built-in glamour and violence to justify a vacuous film about them.

All of which makes the triumphs of The Baader Meinhof Complex all the more impressive. Made by the producer of Downfall (Bernd Eichinger) and directed by Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn), it's a dense, sophisticated film that thoroughly deflates the myths that have grown up around the group. Preferring to let events unfurl without handholding, it drops you into a situation and trusts you to work things out for yourself, replicating the dizzying, hard-to-fathom motivation of the group itself.

Kicking off in 1967, when Germany was experiencing its post-war economic miracle, the film charts how the global spirit of revolution turned sour amongst the Left in a country that had little to really complain about. With the spectre of Nazism still hanging over Germany, the film uses a violent, heavy-handed police crackdown on student protesters to show how fears that the country was once again sleepwalking into a fascist state galvanised a small group of left-wing radicals. While this provides context for the birth of what would later become the Red Army Faction, the film is careful not to suggest it was in any way a justification. When we're first introduced to founding member Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu), the film doesn't try to present him as anything other than what he was: a good-looking, sexist, racist, anti-intellectual thug who got off on violence and anarchy. It makes clear there's nothing especially political behind his actions beyond a desire to shake up the establishment, yet the film shows how easily others were seduced by his desire for violent insurrection.

Radical journalist Ulrike Meinhof's more troublesome involvement begins after Baader is arrested. Her radical newspaper columns suggest she might be sympathetic to their cause, so she's roped in to help secure his release. She soon crosses the line, helping spring him from custody. Played by The Lives of Others star Martina Gedeck, she makes this confused transition utterly convincing. What's great is that the film doesn't try to psychoanalyse Meinhof's (or indeed anyone's) motivations, thus avoiding the trap of serving up pat resolutions. Instead it propels us along their increasingly violent and contradictory path, interweaving their actions with the attempts of chief of police Horst Herold (an absorbing turn from Bruno Ganz) to bring them down while under intense media and political scrutiny. It all makes for a brave and thrilling film full of contemporary resonances that go deeper than mere image.