How do you compress the 10 year rise of one of West Germany's most violent political resistance movements into a thoughtful and morally complex 2 hour movie? Well, if you're director Uli Edel, you don't. Instead you cram a laundry list of the movement's crimes (explosions! and lots of 'em!) into a bloated and empty 150 minute run time, while sacrificing petty concerns like motivation and character development.
The Baader-Meinhof Complex traces the activity of the original members of the Red Army Faction from the late 1960s until the late 1970s. Led by Andreas Baader and documented by journalist-turned-conspirator Ulrike Meinhof, the group railed against what they perceived as the rise of post-Nazi Fascism in West Germany.
Influenced in equal parts by the writings of Mao Tse-tung and the foco theory of guerilla warfare championed by Che Guevara, the RAF ultimately were responsible for dozens of deaths and countless acts of destruction. What would turn a bunch of well-to-do kids into a gang of bloodthirsty terrorists? What would cause mothers and fathers to abandon their infant children in pursuit of a cause? Uli Edel doesn't seem to care. His RAF members listen to loud British rock and shoot gleefully from fast moving stolen cars.
There's not a flesh and blood character in the bunch. Instead, it plays like St. Elmo's Fire with a side of Communist Revolution. With the scrupulous attention to cool clothes and cute wigs, Udel's RAF come across as a bunch of bratty fashion terrorists. It's fine if that's the political stance you want to take, but it makes it hard to watch these characters for almost 3 hours or to invest in their ultimate fates.
Bruno Ganz, who is always interesting, does his best with the material. But his character, the head of the German police force, does little more than spout weighty one-liners that serve as expository stand-ins for actual cinematic investigation.
When he appeals to his peers to try to understand the motives and concerns of the terrorists--how can we function as a society without empathy?--it seems strangely ironic given Edel's own refusal to scratch the surface.
The Baader-Meinhof Complex is in select theaters now.
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