The Baader Meinhof Complex

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Movie
Original title The Baader Meinhof Complex
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2008
length Theatrical version: 144 minutes
TV version: 152 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 14
Rod
Director Uli Edel
script Bernd Eichinger
production Bernd Eichinger
music Peter Hinderthür ,
Florian Tessloff
camera Rainer Klausmann
cut Alexander Berner
occupation

In the order of their appearance:

The feature film Der Baader Meinhof Complex from 2008 describes the history and actions of the left-wing extremist terror group Red Army Fraction (RAF) from 1967 to 1977. The script written by producer Bernd Eichinger largely follows the non-fiction book of almost the same name (the film title does not correspond to the missing hyphens the rules of German spelling) by Stefan Aust (first published in late 1985). The script dispenses with identifying characters and a continuous story arc. Directed by Uli Edel , some of the most famous German actors played in the film - also in supporting roles. It is one of the most expensive German-language productions and had two and a half million moviegoers. The ARD , which co-financed the film, aired it a year after the cinema premiere as a longer two-part TV series. The critics received the film very divided. She was divided over whether he carried away the viewer or left uninvolved, whether he presented the RAF members soberly or mythically exaggerated and whether he contributed new things to the debate about the RAF. Because of the way some real people are portrayed, there have been some lawsuits against those responsible.

content

action

Most of the plot revolves around the formation and actions of the RAF in the period from 1967 to 1977 (see timetable of the Red Army Faction ). During the state visit of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in West Berlin , a demonstration was violently broken up, during which Chief Detective Karl-Heinz Kurras shot and killed the student Benno Ohnesorg in front of the Deutsche Oper . Less than a year later, student leader Rudi Dutschke , speaker at the Vietnam Congress in the Audimax of the TU Berlin , was shot and seriously injured by a young unskilled worker in the street. As a reaction follows a protest against the Axel-Springer-Verlag , in which Ulrike Meinhof also takes part. After the arson in two Frankfurt department stores as a protest against the Vietnam War , the perpetrators were arrested the next day. Meinhof writes about the trial as a journalist and gets to know the accused students Gudrun Ensslin , Thorwald Proll and Andreas Baader .

The defendants are sentenced to three years in prison, but released in June 1969 until the court decides whether to revise their sentences. When their revision was rejected in November 1969, Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin went underground, including in Rome . After Berlin returned, they live temporarily at Meinhof. During a vehicle inspection, Baader was arrested and imprisoned, but a month later Meinhof and Ensslin succeeded in the so-called “ Baader liberation ” in Berlin. With this Meinhof changes to illegality and leaves her two daughters behind. In the summer of 1970 the group received military training in a Fatah camp . In the same year they carried out three bank robberies in Berlin almost simultaneously, in which they stole a total of over DM 200,000. There are arrests, including Horst Mahler and Astrid Proll . Petra Schelm was the first person to be killed on the RAF side to be shot by the police in a backyard. The RAF carried out several bomb attacks, including on the V US Corps in Frankfurt am Main , the Augsburg Police Department and the Axel Springer AG publishing house . BKA President Horst Herold uses a computer search to catch the terrorists . Finally - in the summer of 1972 - the most important leaders, including Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof and Holger Meins , are caught and imprisoned in the high-security wing of Stuttgart-Stammheim .

After Meins died on a collective hunger strike by RAF prisoners, terrorists shoot the President of the Berlin Court of Justice von Drenkmann . In order to free all like-minded people, the “Holger Meins Command” occupies the German embassy in Stockholm and takes twelve hostages (“ Stockholm hostage-taking ”). During this action, they murdered Lieutenant Colonel Andreas von Mirbach and Economic Attaché Heinz Hillegaart . An explosion occurs during a rescue operation; all six command members are injured. During the trial , the prisoners try to boycott the process by continuously portraying themselves as incapable of standing, insulting the judge and thereby disrupting the process. Meinhof fell out with her fellow inmates and killed herself in May 1976. After serving her prison sentence, Brigitte Mohnhaupt became the leader of the group that carried out further attacks. The RAF murdered Attorney General Siegfried Buback , his driver and another companion in Karlsruhe . Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar shoot Jürgen Ponto , the board spokesman of Dresdner Bank  AG, in his house in Oberursel during an attempted kidnapping . After the Stammheimer have experienced prisoners that the kidnapping of the airplane "Landshut" by the PFLP has failed to free their pressure, they take in the night of death from Stammheim life. Thereupon the last supporters of the group shoot the employer-president Hanns-Martin Schleyer , whom they had kidnapped 43 days earlier (see German autumn ).

Faithfulness to facts

The film largely follows the book Der Baader-Meinhof-Complex by Stefan Aust . Eichinger and Edel demanded the greatest possible authenticity. They emphasized the meticulousness with which they had recreated the pictures. Corresponding license plates were affixed to vehicles and the shots were counted precisely according to police reports. The shelf in Meinhof's cell was set up with every LP and every book in exactly the same order, and pubic hair wigs ensured compliance with the customs of the time when performing nude. Wherever conversations have been handed down verbatim, Eichinger took them on; many other dialogues come from written statements, for example in the case of the Herold figure. The confrontations of the prisoners were reconstructed from cash registers . The sentences of Pastor Ensslin in the interview are also real, but not - as shown in the film - by Stefan Aust.

Eichinger explained that one can only approach historical reality. Sometimes he allowed himself to deviate from the historical facts in the sense of a dramaturgical condensation , provided that this did not distort the story. The movie scene in which Baader meets his girlfriend in the bathtub with Peter-Jürgen Boock is exemplary. In fact, Boock was in the bathtub with Ensslin. In fact, Baader once gave young Boock a leather jacket. But Eichinger combined two separate events into one. The time of Baader's arrest is shown very briefly. A fictional character is Herold's assistant Koch, who is used to enable Herold to communicate his thoughts to another person and thus to the audience. Furthermore, some lawyers are shown in the Stammheim trial , but they neither appear in speaking roles nor are they named. The lawyers and later politicians Hans-Christian Ströbele and Otto Schily who were involved in the process at the time do not appear in the film.

Emergence

planning

Originally, the head of culture at NDR Aust had proposed in 2005 to produce a docudrama about the Baader-Meinhof group that was to be broadcast on the 30th anniversary of the Schleyer kidnapping. The two sought out Eichinger as a preferred producer, but he insisted on a feature film. During the Berlinale 2006, Eichinger discussed the project with NDR feature film director Doris Heinze . She contacted other colleagues from ARD stations , all of whom started production within a few weeks, although only Aust's non-fiction book, but no script, was available. NDR, BR and WDR provided half of the 20 million euro budget. The broadcasters thus secured the right to broadcast the film as an extended two-part series. In addition, there were around 6.5 million euros from film funding programs , of which 2.7 million euros from the German Film Fund . Even before filming began, Eichinger offered film distributors in various countries for sale in May 2007 with some success.

For camera, sound, equipment, make-up and editing, as well as for other parts of the manufacturing and production management, Eichinger relied on staff with whom he had worked before. In the summer of 2006 he offered Uli Edel the direction. The two met in 1970 while studying at the University of Television and Film in Munich . Edel felt immediately addressed by the project because it had something to do with his generation and he had been a contemporary witness . While researching the film, he spoke to former RAF members. When it comes to casting the roles, the producer and director weren't looking for an image of the historical personalities, but a certain similarity (or the ability to create it) was welcome. While Bleibtreu and Gedeck were filled early, Nadja Uhl was initially intended to portray Gudrun Ensslin before Johanna Wokalek was finally given the role. By occupying Herold with Bruno Ganz and a fictional assistant with Heino Ferch , Eichinger wanted to give more weight to the representatives of state power, who - compared to the terrorists - appear comparatively little on the screen. The also participating Katharina Wackernagel is the niece of Christof Wackernagel , ex-RAF member and also an actor.

execution

The setting of the cell wing in the Bavaria film studio

Eichinger wrote the screenplay from January to the beginning of March 2007, and the recording began on August 7, 2007. 74 days of shooting were available to shoot a film with 120 speaking roles and 6,300 extras at 140 locations. In order to avoid time-consuming changes of film location, locations were sought in which several motifs could be staged, whereby Berlin proved to be an ideal, multi-faceted place. There were 56 days of shooting in the capital, five in Ouarzazate in Morocco and one in Rome, where only a street scene with the church of Santa Maria della Pace in the background was filmed. The original multi-purpose hall of the JVA Stammheim was available for the Stammheim trial ; the cells on the seventh floor were recreated in the Bavaria studios in Munich. The beginning of the film was not made on Sylt , but on the Baltic Sea near Rostock . Some vehicles came from the holdings of the 1st German Police Oldtimer Museum . Edel sent the leading actors to practice weapons with live ammunition and prescribed a diet for most of the actors in the Stammheim hunger strike. The cut took about four months to complete and was shared by Edel, Eichinger and film editor Alexander Berner worked in Munich.

Formal aspects

dramaturgy

Eichinger's approach

According to Eichinger, despite the lack of classical dramaturgy, the material shows characteristics of classical tragedy : "Hubris, betrayal, metaphorical parricide (the crimes of the parents' generation should be punished), and in the end (almost) everyone is dead." "Probably the greatest German tragedy of the post-war period". About the relationship between the audience and the characters, Edel said that they wanted Baader to appear sympathetic and charismatic in the first part of the film, because many people of his generation felt that way before the first deaths occurred. Every viewer has to decide for himself when to turn away from the figure.

The non-fiction book has no coherent plot in which one event triggers the next. That is why Eichinger decided on a solution that he called “scrap dramaturgy”, in which characters appear and disappear again without explanation. The viewer is presented with individual parts from which he can assemble a whole. For a long time Eichinger was not sure whether this approach would work at all. In order to avoid his own interpretation of the material and ready-made answers, he dispensed with an emotional identification figure. “What was relevant were the actions of the people and how they influenced the course of events through their actions.” The audience, to whom he left the interpretation of the material, was to be carried away by the rapid sequence of events. Only the rough cut did away with his doubts as to whether the scrap dramaturgy worked.

Critical judgments

The film magazine Ray wrote that the chosen approach to the material was quite unique in the field of cinema. Thanks to its distance, the film is authentic. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Tobias Kniebe acknowledged the pursuit of authenticity, which is unusual for German multi-part television broadcasters who use history as a visual background for melodramas. Eichinger did not intervene in the material for dramaturgical reasons and thus actually spent 20 million euros on an experimental film . Andreas Fanizadeh from the taz praised the courage not to speak judgmentally. It faced a large number of criticisms that reproached the creators for the lack of their own point of view, a comment or an assessment of the events. Some of them found this attitude discouraged. The film puts the violence of both sides on the same level, is morally indifferent to it and allows the viewer to take sides for one side of his choice. This political openness is part of a blockbuster strategy that aims to serve several target groups at the same time.

Some of the reviewers attested that the film was made on a high level of craftsmanship and technicality, a swiftly staged action film, not boring, gripping even for the initiated and solidly told, even if not a higher cinematic art. The sequence received honorable mentions from the anti-Shah demo, which has seldom seen power and gives viewers the feeling of being there. Tobias Kniebe judged that at the beginning the high compression of ten years of RAF history worked “amazingly well”, immediately evoked emotions, but in the long run the fast forward would be too simple. While the taz defended the speed of storytelling because it corresponded to the historical accelerated development, epd Film found that the film had “a deafening pace, but no rhythm”. Several critics said the film was boring. The detailed reconstruction makes the work soulless.

There were also numerous voices, according to which the makers would have squeezed far too many events into a single feature film and left out a lot of interesting things. The result is a sequence of events without a deeper analysis of the background, a ticking off and browsing of incidents, a "Baller Meinhof". The narrative style does not convey any knowledge or developments. It remains the “skeleton of a narrative”, but no time to perceive the people involved, said Michael Althen in the FAZ. The film probably works as a “ghost train ride” through an era, but turns into “political porn” because it is made up of sheer high points exist. Some reviewers declared the production useless because those viewers who were familiar with the history of the RAF did not need the quick retelling, while the younger audience was given no orientation and could not understand the briefly sketched stations.

Figure representation

Point of view of the actors

Gedeck, Bleibtreu, Wokalek and Uhl distanced themselves from the characters in interviews and in the film book. They stated that they did not know the motives that led their characters to use violence. They didn't want to evaluate their actions either. They would have had to look for access to the characters to be played first. Gedeck found it difficult to memorize the unrealistic, hateful texts of the later Meinhof. Wokalek started with Ensslin's longing for a more just world, but killing remained alien to her. She immersed herself completely in the spiritual world of Ensslin and faded out everything around her: "This, it seems to me, complicated woman really needed me."

Bleibtreu assumed that the underground fight with bank robberies had given Baader a lot of fun, and that Baader had only dealt more intensively with political theory in Stammheim. “He thought this life was great. And of course it was great to rob a bank, to come home easily with 120,000 marks, and three girls stand there adoring you because you did it for Vietnam. Then suddenly he was a modern Robin Hood - take it to the rich and give it to the poor, live a rule-free life, write your own laws. I think there is hardly anything cooler in the world than a canonized gangster. ”In his game, Bleibtreu wanted to convey Baader's seductive charisma and strong love for Ensslin, instead of striving for an outward and facial similarity that is already sparsely passed down through documents.

Gedeck tried to give the impression of Meinhof, because Edel didn't want them to copy Meinhof. Before the shoot, previously unpublished sound recordings from the Stammheim trial appeared. Bleibtreu and Edel agreed that the actor should not imitate Baader's slow lisping, because it would have ridiculed the character and would have contributed nothing to the understanding of the topic. The swabbing of the real Ensslin fell victim to similar considerations .

Critical judgments

Some reviewers used the terms “great”, “convincing” or “outstanding” to describe Martina Gedeck's acting performance, without giving any further reasons. The criticism of Johanna Wokalek was more detailed, whose presentation found the NZZ angry because it did not convey anything about the “cruel unconditionality” of Ensslin. In contrast, other critics saw in her the "real sensation" of the film. Her figure has fanaticism, she makes her change from idealist to terrorist palpable. However, she probably played Ensslin historically inappropriately sexy and personable, her erotic charisma would have "brought the state to its knees even without weapons". The ratings of Nadja Uhl as Brigitte Mohnhaupt were that she acted appropriately cool, partially successfully overcoming her delicate appearance, or alluding to "bravely against her doll-like charisma".

The Baader figure is freely drawn as a casual guy or pop star or modeled on Belmondo : In the end he feels betrayed by Meinhof, as the main character was betrayed by a woman out of breath . In the case of Bruno Ganz in the role of Herold, there was one opinion that he was as good as always, as opposed to the opinion that his facial expressions, which he had trained at the Burgtheater , seemed to be wrong. Many reviewers expressed their eerie to comical feelings that there was still something in Ganz from his Hitler role in Der Untergang .

Visual style

Pursued Concepts

No “beautiful” image compositions, no advertising aesthetics, no distraction from the content was the solution for cameraman Rainer Klausmann . He only used naturalistic light, where necessary he increased the luminosity of existing light sources with artificial ones. It offered the actors great freedom of movement, they should have to look at the camera as little as possible, rather the camera had to follow them. As a result, most of the recordings were hand-made. Depending on the scene, up to five cameras were used. The fact that the script puts the perpetrators in the foreground prompted Edel to at least portray the murders from the victims' camera perspective. He didn't want to create a nostalgic scene, so there is no hippie folklore and a rather sparing use of contemporary music. The costumes were also not allowed to distract from the content, they didn't want a “Prada Meinhof”, which according to Edel was not easy to implement, because Baader and Ensslin had a clear tendency towards fashionable self-presentation. Costume designer Birgit Missal has therefore "screwed down" the guaranteed clothing and dispensed with many a colorful original costume .

Critical judgments

Some reviewers saw the quality of the film in the illustration of history as "a kind of precise and detailed chronological gallery". The production design and costumes are reproduced carefully and in detail, free of “retro chic” and 70s antiques.

FSK approval

The Main Committee of the Voluntary Self-Control of the Film Industry (FSK) discussed the age rating of the film on September 3, 2008. Although “the scenes of violence on display, which are very impressive due to their length and intensity […] [the committee members], stated that violence was clearly negative and is not characterized in a problem-solving manner and that it seems necessary in the context of the film to give younger young people an authentic impression of the drastic events. Their content-related embedding and the realistically presented consequences are neither exemplary nor trivializing. The increase in acts of violence and their consequences are portrayed as deterring and repugnant. ”With regard to the perpetrator and victim perspective, the committee members came to the conclusion“ that the terrorists 'view prevails, while the victims' situation is hardly presented. However, this contradicts the fact that the film in no way adopts the position of the terrorists, but also calls on young viewers to reflect critically on the acts of violence. " was to mark the film as "approved for ages 12 and over".

The then Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Family, Youth and Senior Citizens of Land Schleswig-Holstein appealed against that order appellation one. "After extensive deliberations on the possible effects of the film on these children, the appeal committee largely answered the question of whether the film viewed is suitable to impair the development of 12 and 13-year-old children or their upbringing to become independent, socially competent people. although there was agreement that this is a borderline case. ”The appeal was rejected.

The film as part of the RAF debate

In the run-up to the cinema release, the conditions caused some hype, under which journalists were allowed to see the film in advance. You should have undertaken not to report on the content of the film before September 17, 2008, eight days before it opened in theaters. Embargo periods for the publication of reviews were customary, but the unusual threat of 100,000 euros contractual penalty if the release date was violated prompted the German Association of Journalists to call for a decision not to sign and to boycott the film.

Background of the producer

As early as 1978, Bernd Eichinger was considering producing a film about Ulrike Meinhof. The subject was close to him, said Eichinger, because his older sister was a communist with close ties to militants. However, he gave up the project due to the lack of usable documentation on the complex material. His fascination for the topic remained because he did not understand the proponents of violence: “On the one hand, I'm repelled by it, on the other hand, I can't let go of it because I want to understand it. In this respect, the motivation for filming The Baader-Meinhof Complex was the same as in Der Untergang . ”Understanding, according to Eichinger, was difficult for him, because for him“ rebellion against authorities was ultimately always a matter of the individual. I just couldn't imagine joining a group that wanted to undermine an authority together. ”In the Baader Meinhof complex, he doesn't tell stories for those who are already familiar with the events, but for a younger generation.

Judgments of criticism

The publications featured in the film, the Konkret magazine , in which Meinhof wrote, and the Bild-Zeitung published by the Axel Springer Verlag, against which the RAF bombed , rated the film contrary. In a derisive condemnation , Konkret spoke of an "infusion of the old Ausschen colportage, which was elevated to the status of semi-official historiography" and should find its way into school lessons. Specifically, lamented implausible portrayals of people, irrelevant imagery, "home-made action with violent RAF rambos" and the fast "forced march" from event to event: "The welcome side effect: words and actions are robbed of their context, for quoting only one of the thoughts, which the founders of the RAF may have made, “I don't have the time.

Bild dedicated numerous supporting articles to the film. At the cinema release, the paper praised the “explosive script”, the condensation into a “lavish action orgy” and the “sensational” stars. “You don't clap when you go out. But it felt like 3 hours in the "German Autumn" - and in the perverse brains of the 68 terrorists. You get angry - somehow at everything. "The newspaper asked:" Should you look? Duty! ”And concluded with the conclusion:“ The film is very good. It's good that it's over, too. It's history. "

Several critics discovered parallels in the complex to the Eichinger production, The Downfall of Hitler's Last Days , published four years earlier . The producer "vicheing" another piece of German history with expensive show values ​​and popular stars, is starting a "history disposal company", a history-conserving "reconstruction machinery". For others, the project testified how many stars the German film industry is able to muster today, some of whom have taken on their unworthy minor roles.

Editors of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Spiegel were given preferential treatment to other media by the film distribution. They were able to watch the film earlier and publish their articles that were positive before the lockout period expired. In his article , Frank Schirrmacher , head of the features section of the FAZ , complained about the unbearably emotional and pathetic culture of remembrance that had arisen around the RAF . This can be found among others in the left-wing intellectual milieu, among teachers, journalists and artists who were dissatisfied at the time and suffered from society and the impossibility of a revolution. The film perfectly reproduces the 1970s, creates a “parallel universe” and “possibly has the strength to put the entire RAF reception on a new basis.” Because it makes it clear that the RAF terror in the Stammheim phase does not exist was about politics, but about the liberation of prisoners who wanted to run a household as a bourgeois couple of lovers. And it offers the chance to understand the pathology of the supporters who justify the worst crimes of the RAF out of love.

Dirk Kurbjuweit expressed the hope that the film would shift the RAF debate away from the motives and words towards the deeds in a Spiegel cover story. Previous films about RAF members, namely The Silence after the Shot (2000), The Inner Security (2000) and Baader (2002), had shown the terrorists as suffering and with sympathy. As successful as they were for themselves, they provided "bearable images of an unbearable event", focusing on the motives of the murderers instead of their monstrous deeds. Although Gedeck still pursues the conventional approach of empathizing with the character, Nadja Uhl only shows the killing, which is a "milestone for the German way of dealing with the RAF". So far there have only been pictures of the crime scenes after the crime, and the very painful, relentless pictures of the RAF acts are provided by the film.

Some other critics conceded that violence was not being glossed over. However, there were doubts that the film could influence the discussion. He could not, as announced, unmask the RAF in the perception of the Germans because they had always seen the terrorists for the murderers they were, and because the RAF had long since been intensively investigated.

The loose dramaturgy pushes causes and effects, motives and guilt of perpetrators aside and turns terrorism into fate, for example with Meinhof, which seems like a driven woman, it said in some reviews. The reduction of the characters to a gang of murderers without personal motives, said Bert Rebhandl in the Standard , turns against all attempts to think of German terrorism as a symptom of a social system. The characters' motifs and backgrounds were missing even more critics. Others found the figures of the first generation, Ensslin, Baader and above all Meinhof, still clearly outlined, but the figures that appeared later no longer. According to Stefan Reinecke in epd Film , the film reproduces the cliché put forward by Stefan Aust that the RAF founders still had noteworthy motifs, while the next generation were unscrupulous killer machines.

Some critics attested the work not to have fallen into grandeur. The background makes the justified outrage and the slide of individuals into the violence emotionally comprehensible, and prevents their glorification as well as their demonization. This is how Andreas Fanizadeh saw it in the taz . “The desire to revolt back then is not shamefully suppressed, otherwise little would have happened in Germany without it, from which we all benefit today.” The film denies a sometimes alleged inevitability, according to which pop and rebellion lead directly into armed struggle and make it clear that the terror would not have escalated "if the stubborn political establishment had come to insight and reflection at times." The protagonists are multi-layered "people with feelings and intelligence". Conversely, Eckhard Fuhr rated von der Welt . The narrative patterns used in the action cinema promoted a myth-forming conversion from criminals to combatants. The terrorists played by sympathetic stars appeared more complex and livelier than the representatives of the state apparatus.

Statements from the personalities involved

Stefan Aust, who accompanied the production as a consultant, attested that the film was very authentic. The film director Volker Schlöndorff had already dealt with the consequences of the RAF in three films, 1975 , 1978 and 2000 . He explained that when it came to the RAF, he didn't think of action and shootings, but of the "desperation of people who started out as idealists and ended up in a corner as fanatics". The former Federal Minister of the Interior Gerhart Baum stated that the film was made well and realistically as a film, but offered “no new knowledge”. The action dramaturgy threatened to drown out the political motives. The film will not change the debate about the RAF, the more topical question is how the democratic constitutional state should react to terrorist threats.

The son of the killed Siegfried Buback thought the film was worth seeing, but as a “perpetrator film” it focuses on the terrorists and only covers part of the subject because the victims remain “vague and impersonal”. In contrast, Hanns Martin Schleyer's son valued the portrayal of the RAF as a gang of merciless and merciless murderers. Likewise, the son of the murdered Andreas von Mirbach saw the merit of the film in the unadorned depiction of how barbaric the deed against his father was, although the murder was actually much more brutal. A daughter of Meinhof, the publicist Bettina Röhl , criticized the fact that the film allowed terrorists to worship heroes to the maximum and that the portrayal of her mother was lacking the “poison”.

In protest against the falsified portrayal of the murder of her husband Jürgen Ponto , his widow Ignes Ponto returned her Federal Cross of Merit, as she saw the state as partly responsible for its film funding. The film violates the dignity of relatives and the memory of a dead person. She filed a lawsuit, citing her general personal rights and her husband's post-mortem personal rights , because the representation deviated from reality in essential points. In January 2009 she was unsuccessful in the first instance with the lawsuit before the Cologne Regional Court. The court allowed the appeal to the Cologne Higher Regional Court . The former RAF member Brigitte Mohnhaupt was also suing . She wanted to have the dialogue removed from the film and the book about the film in which, after her release from prison, she said that she had "not fucked with a man" for five years, as well as the subsequent sex scene. Constantin Film and the publishing house invoked freedom of art , and the Hamburg district court rejected Mohnhaupt's request.

Foreign criticism

In Italy the film was released a month later than in Germany with 140 copies. Uli Edel takes a distance of maximum security from any polemics, prefers the "objectivity" of 30 years over an event that is similar to what happened in Italy at the time, said the Corriere della Sera . Everything that is achieved with the didactic objectivity of the reconstruction and is needed for memory is lost in the interpretation of the facts. The cast is great. In France, the film ran less than two months after its German release under the title La bande à Baader , which is reminiscent of the anarcho-criminal gang à Bonnot . The Liberation found the effort to show the RAF protagonists as unsympathetic or outrageous borderline personalities strange, whereas only the police chief would be treated positively. The film forgives even the last bit of credibility and offers little room for reflection. A solid, serious documentary would have been more useful to provide insight into the era.

The Spanish El País saw the complex as a product with a “certain cinematic height” . More didactic than artistic, more detailed than analytical, but always interesting and entertaining, the film seems to be aimed at new generations of Germans who are little familiar with the events and see the RAF as a snobbish rocker gang rather than a radical political group whose path leads to terrorism. Caught in the facts, from which they omit none, Eichinger and Edel are all too limited to invoking the overthrow of a myth. The Polish Gazeta Wyborcza stated that the RAF is more present in Germany in pop culture than in politics. Once again it was prepared to be digestible for consumers of this culture, this time as an action film. In a way that provided mental clarity and focus, Philip French found in the British Observer that Edel provided an objective and unbiased chronicle. The refusal of simple judgments makes the film strong, which also offers some humor. The Dutch Volkskrant said that the threat and chaos were seldom so tangible and lively as in the scenes of the Shah's visit . The complex demythologizes the top RAF, is not without humor, and Bleibtreu is playing with contagious bravado. But striving for realism, Eichinger and Edel zigzag ran between many hastily introduced people, and this completeness is at the expense of the drama.

In the United States, the complex was released on September 11, 2009, with a one-year delay. Most of the reviews have favored the film, including the Washington Post . The film is told in a rigorously dispassionate and clear-sighted manner, Edel has staged balanced and controlled, and made the motivations of the RAF characters understandable without apologizing. He trusts the viewer's ability to form their own moral judgment. Similar to The Lives of Others , the complex is an expression of German culture that can cope with the most disturbing and complex aspects of its history. One can learn from this film how art that resists romanticization and anger can turn even the most painful occurrences into a useful history lesson.

Cinema and television version

The film premiered on September 16, 2008 in the Mathäser-Filmpalast in Munich, on the 25th it was shown in German cinemas, on the 26th in Austria and on October 2nd in Switzerland. In Germany, the number of copies at the start was 550, and by the end of 2008 the film had had over 2.4 million cinema entries. Most of the revenue came from the home market (over $ 21 million), with just under half a million US dollars in the United States and £ 300,000 in the UK.

The ARD broadcast the complex on November 22nd and 23rd, 2009 in a version longer than the movie by 14 minutes of narrative action. Eichinger claimed that this version had a “calmer narrative structure”. Die Welt stated that Eichinger had already used all the action effects in the theatrical version. The terrorists' motivation is not explained in much greater detail on television, the little extra material should have been shown in the cinema. Above all, the author could not understand why Ensslin's reaction to Ohnesorg's death - a call to arms against the Auschwitz generation - was missing in the theatrical version. The Tagesspiegel considered the same scene to be “a crucial detail” despite its brevity, because Ensslin was far more than Meinhof the spiritual founder of the RAF. However, the television version only weakens the shortcomings of the cinema without eliminating them.

Movie attendance numbers

country Visitors 2008
Germany 2,404,734
Great Britain 81,541
Austria 70,390
Switzerland 60.185
France 52,120
Italy 52.052
Sweden 27,897
Netherlands 24,304
Norway 12,273
Finland 7,978

Awards

literature

Books

conversations

Review mirror

positive

Rather positive

  • Stefan Schmitz: The RAF's last stand . In: Stern , September 11, 2008, pp. 152–161

Mixed

Rather negative

negative

Other contributions

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for the Baader Meinhof complex . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF). Template: FSK / maintenance / type set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ Age rating for Der Baader Meinhof Complex . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ The knife in the back of the RAF . In: Der Spiegel . No. 50 , 1985 ( online ).
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h Stefan Schmitz: The last battle of the RAF . In: Stern , September 11, 2008, pp. 152–161
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h Katja Eichinger: The Baader Meinhof complex. The book about the film . Hoffmann and Campe, 2008, ISBN 978-3-455-50096-7 , pp. 41-77.
  6. ↑ The Baader Meinhof Complex - unfinished chapter of the German past - The Neverending Story . Spiegel TV Magazin , No. 48, November 19, 2009; Heiko Schulze in an interview with Stefan Aust
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Audio commentary by Uli Edel on the DVD
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Katja Eichinger: The Baader Meinhof complex. The book about the film . Hoffmann and Campe, 2008, ISBN 978-3-455-50096-7 , pp. 24-39.
  9. ↑ a b c d e Tobias Kniebe : Bang Boom Bang ( Memento from October 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 25, 2008
  10. ↑ a b c Katja Eichinger: The Baader Meinhof complex. The book about the film . Hoffmann and Campe, 2008, ISBN 978-3-455-50096-7 , pp. 7-23
  11. ^ Moritz Bleibtreu in the program "Johannes B. Kerner" on September 23, 2008; According to the book about the film, pp. 15-16, "several million" came from television
  12. ↑ Volker Gunske: The RAF business: is settled at the end . In: tip , 20/2008, pp. 28-31; Katharina Dockhorn speaks of “over 5 million”: subsidized lobbying . In: epd Film , No. 7/2008, p. 6
  13. ↑ a b c d e f Daniel Kothenschulte : Belmondo Baader . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , September 18, 2008, p. 33
  14. ↑ a b Uli Edel in conversation with the Stuttgarter Nachrichten , September 19, 2008, p. 16: "But as a father I didn't want to be silent"
  15. ↑ a b Katja Eichinger: The Baader Meinhof complex. The book about the film . Hoffmann and Campe, 2008, ISBN 978-3-455-50096-7 , p. 113
  16. ↑ a b c d e f Dirk Kurbjuweit : Images of barbarism . In: Der Spiegel . No.  37 , 2008, p. 42–49 ( online - cover story).
  17. ↑ a b c Jörg Schiffauer: Death and the citizens' children . In: Ray , No. 10/2008
  18. ↑ a b c d e Andreas Fanizadeh: Fast cuts (alternative title: RAF sells ). In: taz , September 20, 2008, p. 4
  19. ↑ Stefan Reinecke : The Baader Meinhof Complex . In: epd Film , No. 10/2008. Heiko Rosner: The Baader Meinhof Complex . In: Cinema , No. 10/2008, pp. 30-36. Tobias Kniebe : Bang Boom Bang ( Memento from October 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 25, 2008. Daniel Kothenschulte: Belmondo Baader . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , September 18, 2008, p. 33. Andreas Borcholte: Die Terror-Illustrierte . In: Spiegel Online , September 18, 2009; Michael Althen: The thing with the lobster soup . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , September 24, 2008, p. 33. Christoph Huber: The leaden picture of time . In: Die Presse , September 20, 2008. Claudia Schwartz : More gunfire than explosive power . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , September 25, 2008, p. 47
  20. ↑ a b c d e f Michael Althen: The thing with the lobster soup . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , September 24, 2008, p. 33
  21. ↑ a b c d e f g h Christoph Huber: The leaden picture of time . In: Die Presse , September 20, 2008
  22. ^ A b c Eckhard Fuhr: Terror as Action . In: Die Welt , September 18, 2008, p. 3
  23. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Andreas Borcholte: Die Terror-Illustrierte . In: Spiegel Online , September 18, 2009
  24. ↑ a b c Heiko Rosner: The Baader Meinhof complex . In: Cinema , No. 10/2008, pp. 30-36
  25. ↑ a b c d e Stefan Reinecke : The Baader Meinhof complex . In: epd Film , No. 10/2008
  26. ↑ a b c d e f g Jan Schulz-Ojala: Extremely loud and incredibly distant . In: Der Tagesspiegel , September 18, 2008, p. 29
  27. ↑ a b c d e f g Claudia Schwartz: More gunfire than explosive power . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , September 25, 2008, p. 47
  28. ↑ Tobias Kniebe : Bang Boom Bang ( Memento from October 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 25, 2008. Andreas Borcholte: Die Terror-Illustrierte . In: Spiegel Online , September 18, 2009. Claudia Schwartz: More gunfire than explosive power . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , September 25, 2008, p. 47; Heiko Rosner: The Baader Meinhof Complex . In: Cinema No. 10/2008, pp. 30-36
  29. ↑ a b Harald Jähner: RAF in time lapse . In: Berliner Zeitung , September 18, 2008
  30. ↑ a b c d Katja Eichinger: The Baader Meinhof complex. The book about the film . Hoffmann and Campe, 2008, ISBN 978-3-455-50096-7 , pp. 80-102
  31. ↑ Conversation with the Berliner Morgenpost , September 22, 2008, p. 19: "We're not shooting a comedy"
  32. ↑ Bleibtreu and Wokalek in conversation with the Berliner Morgenpost , September 22, 2008, p. 19: “We're not shooting a comedy”. Andreas Baader was talking quite a botch . In: The world
  33. ↑ Michael Althen: The thing with the lobster soup . In: FAZ , September 24, 2008, p. 33. Bert Rebhandl: The misappropriation of all discourses . In: Der Standard , September 18, 2008, p. 5. Harald Jähner: RAF in fast motion . In: Berliner Zeitung , September 18, 2008. Christoph Huber: The lead image of time . In: Die Presse , September 20, 2008. Claudia Schwartz: More gunfire than explosive power . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , September 25, 2008, p. 47. Heiko Rosner: The Baader Meinhof complex . In: Cinema , No. 10/2008, p. 32
  34. ↑ a b Justification for the identification of the film DER BAADER MEINHOF KOMPLEX as "approved for ages 12 and up" in the main committee Central organization of the film industry , September 3, 2008, accessed on February 19, 2017 .
  35. ↑ a b Reason for the confirmation of the labeling of the feature film "Der Baader Meinhof Complex" "Approved for ages 12 and over" in the Appeals Committee. Central organization of the film industry, October 28, 2008, accessed on February 19, 2017 .
  36. ↑ Sonja Pohlmann: Whoever speaks, pays . In: Der Tagesspiegel , August 13, 2008; Volker Behrens: RAF film: Eichinger wants to control journalists . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , August 14, 2008, p. 11
  37. ^ Marit Hofmann: The fall of the RAF . In: Konkret , No. 10/2008, pp. 30–31
  38. ↑ David Blieswood: The RAF myth explodes in a hail of bullets! In: Picture , September 25, 2008
  39. ↑ Frank Schirrmacher : This woman really needed me . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , September 14, 2008
  40. ↑ a b c Bert Rebhandl: The misappropriation of all discourses . In: Der Standard , September 18, 2008, p. 5
  41. ↑ Katja Eichinger: The Baader Meinhof complex. The book about the film . Hoffmann and Campe, 2008, ISBN 978-3-455-50096-7 , p. 117
  42. ↑ Schlöndorff would not have filmed a “shooting orgy” on the subject of the RAF . dpp basic service, September 13, 2008
  43. ↑ Gerhart Baum : It wasn't a war . In: Die Zeit , No. 39/2008
  44. ↑ Buback's son Michael Buback in Focus, September 22, 2008: It's a crime film .
  45. ↑ You can't just see the perpetrators . In: Der Tagesspiegel , September 21, 2008, p. 29
  46. ↑ Meinhof daughter criticizes homage . In: Focus , September 18, 2008, as a short message; in detail in Röhl's blog from September 15, 2008
  47. ↑ In the most tasteless way . ( Memento from May 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 7, 2008
  48. ↑ Ponto widow fails in court . In: Stern , January 9, 2009.
  49. ↑ Poppy head loses . In: Der Spiegel . No. 50 , 2008, p. 86 ( online ).
  50. ^ Festival Roma, di scena gli anni della Raf . In: Corriere della Sera , November 7, 2008
  51. ↑ Maurizio Porro: La banda Baader-Meinhof . In: Corriere della Sera , November 4, 2008
  52. ↑ Maurizio Porro: La banda Baader-Meinhof . In: Corriere della Sera , November 7, 2008
  53. ^ Didier Péron: Eichinger manque Baader . In: Liberation , November 12, 2008, p. 20
  54. ^ Javier Ocaña: El terrorista como mito . In: El pais , March 13, 2009, p. 49
  55. ^ Piotr Buras: Baader, Meinhof i niemiecka mitologia . In: Gazeta Wyborcza , December 20, 2008
  56. ^ Philip French: An earlier shot at Utopia . In: The Observer , November 16, 2008, p. 14
  57. ↑ Bor Beekman: 150-minute spiral spiral . In: de Volkskrant , November 20, 2008, pp. 30–31
  58. ↑ According to Metacritic.com , accessed January 3, 2010. Of the 22 US reviews considered, none were negative (below 40 points), three fell in the mixed range between 40 and 60 points, and 19 were positive (above 60 points) , of which 12 with more than 75 points. The weighted average rating based on the reputation of the critics and the publications was 76.
  59. ↑ Ann Hornaday: 'Baader' Confronts A History Haunted . In: Washington Post , September 11, 2009, p. C01
  60. ↑ Income. Internet Movie Database , accessed June 2, 2015 .
  61. ^ TV Today , accessed December 19, 2009
  62. ↑ The most successful German films since 1968 . insidekino.com; Retrieved January 24, 2010
  63. ↑ Income. Internet Movie Database , accessed May 22, 2015 .
  64. ↑ In the theatrical version (according to DVD), the Constantin logo (up to 0:14) is followed by the narrative action up to 136:10 from the first bars of the Janis Joplin song and then the credits up to 143: 34. The first part of the TV version has a plot from 0:12 to 83:55, i.e. over a duration of 83:45. In the second part, the logo goes to 0:12, “What happened so far” to 7:10, the action until 73:50 and the credits until 74:35. So the action of both parts together lasts 83:45 + 66:40 = 150: 25. (Times in PAL speed)
  65. ^ A b Frank Bachner: Terror in the "Director's Cut" . In: Der Tagesspiegel , November 22, 2009
  66. ↑ Peter Zander: The better version of the "Baader Meinhof" film . In: Die Welt , November 23, 2009
  67. ↑ LUMIERE database
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on January 15, 2010 .