The Baader-Meinhof Complex

I’ve loved this film since I first watched it on Netflix around 2011. Since IFC has the rights to it, you won’t see it unless you pay for yet another streaming service or you can just buy the Blu-ray.The transfer here is near reference quality. Extremely film like and looks fantastic on my LG C8 OLED. This is one of the best films I’ve seen dealing with this early terrorist/anti-imperialist resistance (depending on how you view the world) period along with the excellent French made “Carlos The Jackal.” The cast is comprised of two of the finest German actors around in Gedeck and Bleibtreu and it remains highly entertaining until the third act which just isn’t as engaging as the majority of the film.Sound quality (DTS HD MA) is as good as the picture quality for this sort of movie.Finally I personally don’t buy the official version of events. I’m not going to spoil anything but others who know the story or have seen the film will know what I’m referring to.

This movie brings the late 60's, early 70's political swirl of Germany to life. The Baeder Meinhof group was very similar to the Weather Underground in the U.S., but even more violent. I grew up in the 1960's and heard a lot about the Weather Underground, but virtually nothing about the Baeder Meinhof group, so the film was very educational for me. The tragedy of idealism perverted into violence was similar in both groups, however. The film is expertly cast and moves along in a tense, fast-paced fashion. I highly recommend this film to viewers who want an insight into what the most violent of the young people of Germany tried to achieve. It is also an object lesson in the failure of violence as a tool of social change. Finally, this film also provides an insight into the genesis of modern political terrorism, a movement that still bedevils the world today.

From a a technical aspect, it is a very well done film. But the self-important message of socialism and anarchy couched in "political activism' is as much of a fraud then as it is today. These people and those like them are not rebels and heroes, they are criminals and terrorists that are more vile than the systems they protest.

Excellent film - I was in the Army and stationed in Germany during the latter stages of their campaign, so I have more than a passing interest in this film. We had RAF wanted posters in our barracks and what-to-do-if-you-receive-a-bomb threat cards in our wallets, among many other militarily necessary items. Since the end of the Cold War, it's been interesting to see things from the perspective of our former (?) enemies and opponents, viewing this film is a good way to do that.

The Baader-Meinhof Complex is a historically faithful and visually pleasing film about an extreme left-wing militant group that began at the end of the 1960s. Director Uli Edell provides important details about the reasons for the militancy and the different ways that the Baader-Meinhof militants wrought violent disruption of West German society while tapping into the older generation's unresolved issues from its Nazi past. Edell at once portrays the militants as committed, oftentimes ruthless fighters, demonstrating that these individuals were not victims, but rather, people who were willing to stop at nothing to achieve their goals of breaking what they viewed as the complacency and terror of the West German state that had evolved far too little from its Nazi past. It is vital however, to investigate further than Edell's remarkable film, to gauge the extent and scope of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon by looking through a couple of scholarly works on this important passage in recent German history. Baader-Meinhof Returns: History and Cultural Memory of German Left-Wing Terrorism (German Monitor)  and  Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies  will shed light on these events in a more detailed and careful fashion. This is not to imply in any way that the film is incorrect or unhelpful. On the contrary, it is well worth seeing both for its cinematic value--telling a good story with strong characterization, great camera and editing work, etc-- as well as its historiographical input on a troubling, oftentimes puzzling, but nevertheless remarkable era in modern western history.

This movement is dark and scary as it should be. I hate subtitles as well but this needed the German to be real, Very violent but it needed to be to tell this tale.. Martina Gedeck from "The Lives of Others" is also great in this movie.

Excellent movie. Depicts a period when student unrest was not confined to the United States but extended around the world, including Germany. It raises penetrating questions about the German post World War II generation and the level of commitment this generation was willing to go to avoid what they perceived to be the tragedy of the 1930's . I highly recommend for those who seek to understand this generation and this period of German history. English subtitles.

How do nice middle-class college educated people end up becoming terrorists? This film shows how the Baader Meinhof gang rose out of the tumultuous 1960's and got involved in murders, kidnapping, and bombings in the name of social justice, but were tools of higher forces. This film doesn't condescend, either to the BMC or to the German Police who track him. It's an intelligent look at a social phenomena. Any one interested in how people develop into violent resistors should watch this film.

This is an excellent film that presents a dramatization of historical events in Germany during the 1960's and 1970's. The story concerns the formation and activities of a radical and militant left-wing group - the Red Army Faction (RAF) - that operated illegally in West Germany, organised along Leninist lines, and sought to destabilise capitalism in that country. The film explores the early aims and objectives of certain key individuals - Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin - showing how, initially, they sought to redress perceived civil wrongs within society. Yet, as their organisation developed, the group escalated into terrorism - carrying out bombings, kidnappings and assassinations. Ultimately the German police capture these individuals, and the movie depicts the lengthy court proceedings and their imprisonment.The film is superbly acted, with standout performances by Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck, Johanna Wokalek and Bruno Ganz. It is, in the end, a tale that explores disillusionment with the status quo and how efforts to fight for greater freedom and liberty can become twisted into terror and murder. This is a violent film, yet it makes for compelling viewing - especially knowing that it's based on actual events.This movie is in German, with English subtitles. If you enjoy it, I also recommend  The Lives of Others [DVD] [2006 ]. The Lives of Others [DVD] [2006

I'm old enough to remember the Baader Meinhof terrorist group from the 1970's so bought this film to discover more about the events that took place.This is a well acted film BUT it came across to me as a film designed to promote Left Wing politics. Members of the Baader Meinhoff terrorist group were in reality a vicious and evil bunch of individuals who killed and maimed innocent people to achieve their own perverted political aims and should have been executed for their atrocities. It would have been better if they'd been buried in unmarked graves and forgotten.

This 2008 historical drama concentrates on the what the press called the Baader-Meinhoff Group, which marked the formative and early years [first generation] of the West German far-left militant group the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction, or RAF) from 1967 through to the leaderships demise in 1977.The strength here is that it tries to balance the views of the B-M-G against those of the representatives of the fledgling German state, managing a generally ‘fair’ balance while capturing some of the political differences within the group and highlights the cultural clashes and tensions between the middle class revolutionaries and the people they sought to represent and work with. The downside is that the characters are often portrayed as neurotic and disengaged from the world about them, also it fails to really distinguish the differing ‘generations’ that the B-M-G gave rise too, which intensified the B-M-G internal differences, even though they are mentioned and the failure to discuss the more violent Italian Red Brigades is a massive oversight.The single disc opens to 2 trailers, the main menu offering play, scene selection and bonus [history in the making, on Uli Edel, the score, filmographies, trailer]. Rated 18 with scenes of full frontal nudity from the opening, concepts of free love, violence, profanity [including the much used ‘C’ word] this is bound to enrage some, as is the general subject but remains a ‘must see’ for anyone interested in student unrest and terrorism in the 20th century.

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.

Very rarely do I watch films with subtitles because as many know the time you read the translation, the film has moved on 20 frames. However, I really wanted to see this as I remembered clearly what tense times were caused by this group of terrorists and others. The film was very factual, the acting and direction excellent and sometimes I wonder where the makers manage to get some of their props from, decades after they have stopped being produced. The film is pretty much non-stop and the screenplay is superb. Nothing to fault this with. Recommended.