"Der Baader Meinhof Komplex" 2008

Directed by Uli Edel





"I'd like to do a song of great social and..." Janis Joplin's words at the beginning of "Mercedes Benz." With the first words "Oh lord, won't you buy me" the credits roll and our picture begins. It's quite a signifier of the images and information about to be presented to us.

Here we have the story about the Red Army Faction, essentially Germany's Weathermen. While stylization is key within the picture, it never really takes over. Instead, it simply makes things a bit easier with such a brutal subject. Now, whether our filmmaker is conscious or not of this, we are never really brought into the personal lives of our radicals and if we are, it's brief and stagnant. The picture doesn't really give us a moment too build any sort of relationship with anybody, only the Red Army Faction as a whole. With that, much of the violence and anti-establishment agendas seem to come off as selfish and incoherent. This makes it extremely hard to justify and for the most part, sympathize with our rebel group. But should we? I believe the point is, have an agenda, be strong with it, but have some thought and tact before executing. Is it possible for terrorists to have clear thoughts?

Many may argue it's accuracy, and quite frankly you would probably need a 30 hour documentary to cover this topic to give it any form of true depth. Still, the picture is extremely well done, informative, and for the most part, cuts away from a lot of the bullshit that I'm sure some filmmakers would have included.