Saturday Night At The Movies

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By Dennis Hartley

Radical chic(k): The Baader-Meinhof Complex

The Baader-Meinhof Complex is a new German political thriller that largely eschews the politics for the thrills, with nary a sympathetic character in sight. I feel sorry for writer-producer Bernd Eichinger and director Uli Edel. Marketing a film in this day and age that dutifully recreates a 10-year reign of terror by Germany’s most notorious (and nihilistic) group of underground radicals (especially this close to another anniversary of the 9/11 attacks) has got to be a tough sell, no matter how honorable the intentions. Still, the truly objective viewer will find much to admire within this admittedly difficult 2 ½ hour opus.

What I found most exciting about this film were the three fearless and incendiary lead performances that lie at the heart of it. Martina Gedeck (pictured above) is a marvel as Ulrike Meinhof. Meinhof was a well-known left-wing journalist in the late 60s, when she first met radical activists Gudrun Ensslin (a super-intense Johanna Wokalek) and Andreas Baader (Mortiz Bleibtreu, who played Franka Potente’s boyfriend in Run Lola Run). The couple had recently begun to make the transition from protest to action; their firebombing of a department store (in protest of the Vietnam War) made an impression on Mienhof, who was already toying with the idea of making that jump herself. Within a year of their first meeting, Meinhof was firmly in league with Baader and Ensslin, who all eventually would form the nucleus of the self-proclaimed “Red Army Faction”. After a prison break in 1970 that freed Baader (who had earned a 3-year sentence for the department store arson) and a stint of military training in Jordan with El Fatah, the R.A.F.’s actions began to lead to an ever-increasing body count. This naturally precipitated intense pursuit by authorities, who had the three principals and most of their associates rounded up by 1972.

Although the founding members were now incarcerated for good, there would still be another five years of activities by the R.A.F. Mark II- the so-called “second generation” of the organization; this period of their history (1973-1977) accounts for the final third of the film. It is this part of the story that I actually found most fascinating. This is because it demonstrates how (although doesn’t necessarily go to any length to explore why) such radical groups inevitably seem to self-destruct by becoming a microcosm of the very thing they were railing against in the first place (in this case, disintegrating into a sort of self-imposed fascistic state that became more and more about internal power plays and individual egos instead of focusing on their original collective idealism). This aspect of the story strongly recalls the late German filmmaker Rainier Werner Fassbinder’s 1979 political satire, cheekily entitled The Third Generation, in which he carries the idea of an ongoing disconnect between the R.A.F.’s core ideals and what he portrays as little more than a group of increasingly clueless, bumbling middle-class dilettantes who bear scant resemblance to the original group of hardcore revolutionaries, to ridiculous extremes.

This is not a film for everyone. The 150-minute running time will be daunting if you only have a passing interest in the subject matter. As I mentioned at the top of the review, this is not exactly a political film, per se (vis a vis “making a statement”). Screenwriter/producer Eichinger (who adapted from Stefan Aust’s book of the same name) has stated in an interview that the intention was neither to make “…a didactic film nor a modern morality play about German terrorism,” but rather present events as they actually occurred, and allow the viewer to draw their own conclusion. I think they succeed in achieving this intended neutrality; it’s a wise choice, because these are not easy (nor pleasant) characters to spend 2 ½ hours with. If you find the story intriguing as socio-political history (and appreciate top-notch acting), I don’t think you will be disappointed. If you want to see it strictly as an “action” thriller (it does have its fair share of such sequences) I suspect that you may be going to see it for all the wrong reasons.

There is a line in the film that really stuck with me. It is uttered by Bruno Ganz, who plays the head of the German Federal Police Force. It’s almost a throwaway, but I think it’s significant. Unfortunately I can’t remember the exact quote, so I will have to paraphrase. During a strategy meeting, he says something to the effect of “In order to effectively fight terrorism, it is essential to be able to step back far enough to objectively understand the terrorist’s point of view.” The reaction of his colleagues is very interesting; they seem aghast and quite ruffled by the fact that he would even say such a thing. It’s such a simple concept (to me, it’s simply a variation on the old axiom, “Know thy enemy”) but so difficult for the powers-that-be to understand sometimes, hmm? It reminded me of an era not too far past (September 12, 2001-January 19, 2009 to be precise) during when such “objectivity” was interpreted by certain members of our government as “empathy” (read: “unpatriotic”, “not supporting the troops”). Good times!

Previous posts with similar themes:

Monkey Warfare

Chicago 10

Che

Zippy little number: 9

A stitch in time saves…oh, never mind.

In the course of my weekly scribbles here, I haven’t exactly been shy about relaying my general aversion to the Pixar-influenced school of animation (I know, it’s a personal problem). There’s just something about it that is too cold and detached; it doesn’t feel “lived in” and seems to lack the relative “warmth” of hand-drawn cel animation. It’s all too… oh, I don’t know…digital (I liken it to the hoary “vinyl vs. CD” audiophile battle). I dunno. Perhaps I have an innate fear of technology that I have yet to come to grips with. How ironic, then, that one of the first such animated films to catch my fancy happens to be a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story about a world where the “warmth” of the human imprint has been eradicated by cold, detached machines. That is the premise of 9, an imaginative variation on a well-worn genre, directed by Shane Acker and produced by Tim Burton.

The story centers on a diminutive, sentient, semi-organic laboratory creation simply named “9”, a cross between Frankenstein and Pinocchio who looks like a voodoo doll stitched together with recycled burlap and held intact by a handy zip-up front. He awakens one day on the floor of a lab, Rip van Winkle style, to a decimated, desolate and very strange world, alongside the scientist who created him (long dead). As he wanders about getting his bearings, it becomes apparent that the machines, as they say, have “taken over”. Very nasty machines, like a frightful predatory contraption that resembles a T. Rex that might be constructed in a fever dream by a demented Erector Set enthusiast (the mechanized beasts get bigger, and more fantastical, as the story moves along-but I won’t spoil anything by going into detail). When a chance encounter throws “9” in with a tribe of similar beings who have also somehow weathered the apocalypse, a possibility arises that some spark of hope and humanity might still remain-and the mystery is afoot.

The “fear of technology” theme has been a sci-fi film staple, from Fritz Lang’s 1927 prototype, Metropolis , to The Terminatorand beyond. In fact, while I was watching 9, I was thinking that if Fritz Lang were alive today and were to work with computer animation, he would probably cook something up that looked very similar to this (then again, I might have Lang on the brain because I re-watched M just a few weeks back). At times I was also reminded of the transportive otherworldliness of the Brothers Quay (Street of Crocodiles), all set to a moody soundtrack by Danny Elfman (who else-with Burton in the mix?). The film is so wonderfully atmospheric and visually stunning that I was willing to overlook its weaknesses; namely its disintegration (after a compelling start) into a series of loud, repetitive action sequences and an abrupt, anticlimactic finish.

I’d be curious to know if the director (who created the original story from which Pamela Pettler adapted her screenplay) was inspired by The Lord of the Rings. His film is, after all about a “fellowship” of nine who set about (against all odds) on a quest to save their world from the dark forces which are bent on destroying it (and the fact that our little Frodo-like animated hero is voiced by a, um, Mr. Elijah Wood adds fuel to that fire, no?). Other familiar voices: Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly and the irrepressible Crispin Glover (who, perhaps, is best heard…and not seen?).

BTW, what’s with all the “nines” at the box office? Numerologists must be having a field day with the convergence of the recent District 9 (which I reviewed here), Acker’s 9, and the upcoming Nine-the film adaptation of the Broadway musical, based on Fellini’s 8 1/2. Hmmm…maybe the machines SHOULD take over soon. Time to hit the “reset” button…

Bad machines: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Westworld, Futureworld, Blade Runner, I, Robot, The Demon Seed, Colossus: The Forbin Project, Kronos, Wargames, Dr. Strangelove, The Matrix Revolutions, Transformers, Steamboy, Modern Times, Wild Wild West, Christine, Maximum Overdrive, Killdozer.

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