The Revolution will be Televised
The Baader Meinhof Complex, director: Uli Edel (Germany, 2008)
Revolution is a spectacle and terror is public performance. That, it seems, is the message of the action-filled The Baader Meinhof Complex by German director Uli Edel. Adapted from journalist Stefan Aust’s book of the same title, the film attempts to tell the “true story” of what later became known as the first generation of the Red Army Faction (RAF)—Germany’s Weather Underground, but with a martyr twist. Both radical-left organizations were off-springs of SDS-led anti-war, anti-imperialism, anti-colonial student activism in the 1960s; both shared similar sets of values, strategies—and enemies in the form of a ‘fascist’ or racist state and a profit-driven, ignorant establishment. But in addition to numerous bombings and bank robberies à la Weather Underground, the activities of three generations of RAF members account for over thirty homicides and several iconic suicides of their own, as dramatically commemorated at the end of the film.
As suggested by an exorbitant ad campaign preceding its release, The Baader Meinhof Complex is an impressive movie indeed: with a cast that reads like the who-is-who in German cinema, a scandalous budget (in German standards) of twenty million euros, and the meticulous cloning of renowned historical pictures for the screen, down to minute details of revolutionary dress codes, book shelves in prison, or car brands used for kidnapping. Following Aust’s journalistic chronology of RAF’s rise and fall, the film’s impressive scenes lay out the context for the group’s emergence: brutal police beatings of unarmed protesters at the shah of Iran’s visit in Berlin 1967 and the police killing of Benno Ohnesorg, often cited as the first casualty of the 1960s protest movement; passionate appeals for resistance and action in front of huge student crowds by Rudi Dutschke (a popular SDS leader) and the assassination attempt on him in 1968, which was evidently inspired by German tabloids’ lurid coverage of the student movement. The camera seems like a participant in the scenes depicting the angry blockade of Springer, an infamous publishing house, and ensuing destruction of delivery trucks by protesters.
Also in the thick of it: Ulrike Meinhof, the coolly observing but fiery writing editor-in-chief of a political magazine who leaves her husband because of his adultery. Soon, more protagonists enter the scene, each wrapped in their stereotypical imagery: Andreas Baader, the macho for whom “fucking and shooting” are the same, and Gudrun Ensslin, the cool blond, still without a gun. After Baader is arrested for an anti-war action involving the setting of fire in two department stores, Meinhof is recruited to help with his escape—during which she makes her famous leap, out the window and into the underground. Therewith, somehow, the RAF is born.
Over the next two years, there are bombings and pamphlets and guerilla trainings in Jordan—a memorable movie moment when topless German revolutionaries (they are sunbathing) face irritated Palestinian freedom fighters (who dismiss their hedonist comrades soon after). Then, in rapid succession, the dramatic arrests of almost all leaders of the group’s first generation in 1972, followed by clippings from their five long years in a maximum security prison—during which they obtained an impressive number of prisoners’ privileges—and their widely televised, two-year long trial. Meanwhile, the so-called second generation was born whose bombings and killings and hostage-takings still wore the ideological signature of previous RAF actions, but which were primarily done in an attempt to force the release of the founders from prison. The state, however, did not comply, leading to the martyr deaths of most RAF members in the Stammheim prison.
In the end, this fast-paced and picturesque rundown of Germany’s revolutionary heyday leaves the viewer breathlessly staring at the rolling credits; wondering after two and a half hours of blazing teargas, flaming pamphlets, dirty language, and untimely deaths: Where have all the ideals gone? And where did they come from in the first place? As detailed as the film is in dealing with historical facts and figures, it fails to offer any real reasons why the sheltered daughter of a Protestant pastor (Ensslin), the journalistic icon of Germany’s left establishment (Meinhof), or the fatherless high school drop-out with a weakness for fast cars (Baader) all ended up among Germany’s most wanted.
If this movie, as was the filmmakers’ stated intention, is meant to educate today’s twenty-year olds about the origins and intentions of the RAF and left radicalism, it might need a second, less-spectacular, more critical sequel. It needs a lot more than beautiful pictures in chronological order to grasp the intense moral purpose behind the violent passions of that era; to elucidate how historical memory, for example of Germany’s Nazi past, influenced ideologies of terror and the resulting political actions of left militant organizations; or to explain the destructive effects of aggressive infiltration and intentional provocation (most of them later deemed unlawful) by various government agencies on various leftist factions. In addition to what the film is missing, even for a German native with a fairly decent education in the country’s radical history, some of the new characters constantly arriving on the film scene remained a mystery, and lots of the movie’s abounding details are lost on the uninitiated viewer. Another minor observation: the translations of the aggressive and intentionally abrasive speech among RAF members appear astoundingly modest in some of the subtitles. An intentional concession to MPAA rating? One wonders.
Hence … sit back and enjoy the entertainment more than education when the revolution is televised: blockbuster-style, Golden Globe- and Oscar-nomination style (the film didn’t win either), and don’t forget the popcorn! If interested in less lengthy but more in-depth investigations into Germany’s recent revolutionary past, films like Germany In Autumn (Deutschland im Herbst by Werner Fassbinder et al, 1978), The State I Am In (Die innere Sicherheit by Christian Petzold, 2001), or Legend Of Rita (Die Stille nach dem Schuss by Volker Schloendorff, 1999) might be more sensible choices. The latter, for example, deals with a little-known and even less discussed detail of RAF history beyond Baader Meinhof Complex, and the communist entanglements of East and West Germany’s pasts.
The movie was adapted from an autobiography by Inge Viett, who together with nine other RAF members escaped imminent prosecution in the 1980s by going into hiding in Germany’s communist east. Provided with fake identities and logistical support for a new life by the East German secret service, they remained undetected until the fall of the Berlin wall when unification entailed the loss of protection from a sympathetic system and led to discovery and eventual conviction by West Germany’s law enforcement. But there is spectacle added to this adaptation, too—differing from Inge Viett’s story, the film’s main character is shot while trying to escape on a motorcycle—as if fictional accounts of (attempted) revolution can’t do without a seemingly necessary blend of drama, romance…and martyrs.
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