The Baader Meinhof Complex

2008
7.3| 2h30m| en| More Info
Released: 25 September 2008 Released
Producted By: WDR
Country: Germany
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.bmk.film.de/
Synopsis

'Der Baader Meinhof Komplex' depicts the political turmoil in the period from 1967 to the bloody "Deutschen Herbst" in 1977. The movie approaches the events based on Stefan Aust's standard work on the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF). The story centers on the leadership of the self named anti-fascist resistance to state violence: Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin.

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Reviews

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.
Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
Anssi Vartiainen Based on true events, this film follows the history of RAF, Rote Armee Fraktion, a far-left West German activist group. The movie follows the birth of the movement and the fates of its founding members: Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and their associates.What this movie does very well is its ability to work as a spark. I can freely admit that I don't know enough about West Germany in the 60s and 70s to form an opinion about the events showcased in the movie. But I'm interested in finding out. The film is a long one, two and half hours, but it doesn't feel like that at all, thanks to excellent writing and a captivating subject matter.The actors are also top notch and their characters are written well. The film doesn't really take any sides. It focuses mostly on the RAF characters, which is something of a statement, but those characters also condemn many of the more outlandish RAF terrorist strikes as too brutal or as having too many civilian casualties. Again something of a statement.The film is highly recommended for all fans of history. It seems to take for granted that you already know something about the events portrayed, but I can safely say that it can be watched and enjoyed even with only the barest minimum of knowledge.
Sindre Kaspersen German screenwriter, producer and director Uli Edel's fifth feature film which he co-wrote with German filmmaker Bern Eichinger, is an adaptation of a book from 1985 by German Journalist Stefan Aust. It premiered in Germany, was shot on locations in Germany, Italy and Morocco and is a Germany-France-Czech Republic co-production which was produced by producer Bernd Eichinger. It tells the story about three children of the Second World War who following the attempted murder of a German student named Rudi Dutschke, the killing of a German student named Benno Ohrnesorg, the execution of Argentine physician and author Che Guevara, the assassination of American pastor and activist Martin Luther King and American attorney and politician Robert F. Kennedy, the escalation of U.S. bombings in Vietnam, the German student movement, the Paris student riots, the Northern Ireland civil rights movements' first civil rights march and the same year as Australian author Germaine Greer published a book about second-wave feminism, founded an organization. Distinctly and precisely directed by German filmmaker Uli Edel, this finely paced and somewhat fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints, draws an informative and involving portrayal of a German daughter, mother, sister and author named Ulrike Meinhof, a German daughter, mother, sister and trained elementary school teacher named Gudrun Ensslin and a German son, brother and father named Andreas Baader who met each other in the late 1960s, and who due to their common political views regarding imperialism, neo-fascism and authoritarianism started the first generation of the Baader-Meinhof group. While notable for its versatile milieu depictions, reverent cinematography by cinematographer Rainer Klausmann, production design by production designer Bernd Lepel and costume design by costume designer Birgit Missal, this character-driven and narrative-driven story about the history of terrorism in Germany and dehumanization as a result of ideological extremism which recreates a period in time with counterculture and cold-war when the former leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany named Willy Brandt (1913-1992) was president of the Federal Republic of Germany, the eugenistic legislation in Sweden regarding compulsory sterilization was formally abolished and French actress Isabelle Carré was born, depicts some abridged studies of character and contains a timely score by composers Peter Hinderthür and Florian Tessloff. This reflectively conversational, historic and cinematographic reconstruction of real events from the late 2000s which is set mostly in postwar Germany in the late 1960s and 1970s when German students who due to being German citizens were being blamed for the crimes committed by their parents' generation protested against a new emergency legislature in the former capital of West Germany called Bonn and Palestinian leader of the Fatah party Yasser Arafat was elected as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which chronicles the militant activities of the Red Army Faction and where collectivism surpasses individualism and turns into unjustifiable left-wing extremism whilst ones humanity is abandoned for a perceived greater cause, is impelled and reinforced by its cogent narrative structure, subtle character development, rhythmic continuity, abrupt film editing, multiple perspectives, use of archival footage and reverently credible acting performances by German actor Moritz Bleibtreu and German actresses Martina Gedeck and Johanna Wokalek. A densely political, virtuously demystifying and atmospheric narrative feature.
Leofwine_draca THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX tells the true-life tale of a group of political terrorists working in West Germany in the 1970s. Although lengthy, it's an absolutely cracking thriller, one that whizzes through events with an incredible speed that leaves you feeling breathless and reeling from the non-stop crash-bang-wallop of the narrative events.And it's a hard-hitting film, one that pulls no punches in his depiction of the effects of extreme violence both on those committing it as well as the governments involved and the general public. It's one of those movies that cleverly takes no specific viewpoint, refusing to side with either the "good" guys or "bad", instead simply portraying things as they were.The technical values are top notch and the cast are splendid, really getting under the skin of their characters to offer deep insight. It's especially impressive given that the majority of them are unknown to international audiences, aside from DOWNFALL's Bruno Gans in a supporting role. The last '70s-era terrorism-themed film I watched was Spielberg's MUNICH, which was good, but this has that beat hands down; THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX is truly one of the greatest thrillers I've ever watched, and I've watched a lot.
gelman@attglobal.net I knew about the Baader-Meinhof gang but it wasn't the big story in the U.S. that it was in Europe. Youth unrest was widespread at the time and, although the Red Army Faction might have been the most violent group in the West, it wasn't as unique here as it was in Germany and nearby countries. So I didn't know when I went to see the film what to expect. Was I going to see an actual documentary? Was it fiction based on 'real events," an increasingly popular form that sometimes puts a premium on accuracy and sometimes on drama at the expense of accuracy. While watching the film, I had no idea how close any of it was to the truth. I knew about Rudi Dutschke and I remembered Ulrike Meinhof, mainly because she was the public face of the gang. But I don't recall knowing who or what Baader was, and I certainly never heard of any of the others. I was interested to learn afterward that the film closely tracked a major book on the history of the gang. It makes quite a good movie, and the people in it are fascinating., particularly Andreas Badder, Mrs. Meinhof and Gudrun Essenlin. Baader appears to have been a charismatic and mercurial man who is thrilled by the chances he takes. Ulrike Meinhof as portrayed in the film is smart but unstable. Gudrun Essenlin, Baader's sexy, free- loving girlfriend, is the ideological firebrand. With Rudi Dutscke in London recovering from an assassination attempt, the others may be willing participants in robbery and murder, but they are followers not leaders. The dramatic arc of this film is said to be modeled on actual events but, if that's true, history proves to be unexpected artful. Tension is sustained all the way, the major characters are highly individualized, the acting is quite good, the cinematic values are high and, while the musical choices are sometimes jarring (Janis Joplin singing "Lord won't you give me a Mercedes-Benz, the film is as the over-line says a fascinating reconstruction of a fraught period in history. Looked at from 30+ years later, the deadly career of the Baader- Meinhof crowd seems juvenile and also quaint.