Movie review: The Baader Meinhof Complex (Der Baader Meinhof Komplex)

It's simple, really.

by John P. Meyer

There's nothing particularly complex about The Baader Meinhof Complex. Nor does the "complex" of the title refer to a pattern of behavior, such as Stockholm Syndrome. Rather, the movie is a fairly straightforward (if long-winded) chronological dramatization of the active history of the titular urban guerrilla group, which was also commonly referred to as the Baader Meinhof Gang.

The movie has a distinctly Traffic-like feel, as it follows a set of key characters involved in the creation of the band of communist-inspired activists (Terrorists? Freedom fighters? Murderers? Take your pick) who carried out bank robberies, bombings, hostage-takings, and outright shoot-'em-ups in West Germany beginning around 1970. The film runs to 150 minutes with the dialog being primarily in German, with English subtitles.

The story initially focuses on the character of Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck), a middle-class, married-with-children journalist whose coverage of student protests and leftist social activism brings her into close contact with a loosely-organized group of revolutionary brothers and sisters led by Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu) and his compatriot/lover, Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek). This crew hangs out taking communal baths and building bombs while quoting the writings of Che and Mao. They promulgate a code of ethics under which anyone wearing a uniform is fair game, while ordinary civilians are to be considered off-limits. (Ain't collateral damage a bitch, though?)

Already harboring anti-establishment leanings, and with her husband on the outs for flagrant cheating, Meinhof soon finds herself actively involved in the law-breaking pursuits of the Baader group. The band's structure tightens up considerably and attains a degree of heretofore absent focus as a result of Meinhof's philosophical viewpoints and manifesto-writing abilities -- though her journalistic integrity goes to Hell in a handcart.

"Talk without action is wrong," declares one of the more straightforward tenets of the group's manifesto, and so they start robbing banks, kidnapping government officials and bombing newspaper offices with a vengeance. (They refer to the bank robberies as "expropriation": It's all in the labeling.) The movie makes clear that this crew operate by the seat of their pants with very little planning or deliberation involved beforehand. For a while they run quite amok, evading capture only because the police are so ill-prepared to deal with such blatant criminal acts.

There's a strong whiff of the Keystone about this komplex; in a case straight out of the dumb crook files, Baader is nabbed after being pulled over for flagrant speeding when he was already wanted for violating parole.

Once the police catch on that the group's actions will be continuing and widespread, a task force is organized to put them out of commission. Leading it is a particularly sharp and socially conscious individual named Horst Herold (Bruno Ganz). Herold's officers succeed in catching and killing Baader Meinhof gangsters in record numbers, until eventually all the major (surviving) players are behind bars. However, Herold seems well aware that the conditions which spawned the captured crop of revolutionaries will continue to spawn new ones, until those who are disenfranchised are given a fair shake. Or something like that.

Director Uli Edel devotes the last half-hour or so of the film to the manner in which the gang members -- housed rather cushily in a separate wing of a Berlin prison -- become increasingly contentious, with rifts developing between factions and Meinhof ending up particularly alienated from the group. Meanwhile, in the open court proceedings, Ensslin and Baader make a fool out of the presiding judge and win the sympathy of courtroom spectators via populist rhetoric and acid wit. For a while, they even get televisions and radios in their prison quarters. Then, an airliner is hijacked in Baghdad ...

The acting is uniformly accomplished and the actors themselves are attractive -- it's refreshing to get a look at some of the rising stars of European cinema, with not a single Hollywood mug in the bunch. Those who don't know the story of the Baader Meinhof Complex will probably find it interesting to discover how big an effect they had on German society: The ubiquitous presence of submachinegun-wielding police squads and closed-circuit video cameras probably stems directly from this group's long-term violent actions.

A theme running through the film seems to be that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, with the implication being that the repressive regime which brought about the Baader Meinhofs has parallels in various western institutions to this day.

As 150-minute films go, this is a fairly enthralling one -- but you might want to order your popcorn extra large.