Project WATFIO - #14 of 176

'The Baader Meinhof Complex' is about as close as German cinema has got to fully emulating Hollywood, and the film carries both the positives and negatives that such a stature can bring. With a bumper all-star German cast, representing almost every major film to come out of the nation in the past decade - from 'Lola Rennt' (Moritz Bleibtreu) to 'Das Leben der Anderen' (Martina Gedeck) - 'Baader Meinhof' appears a lot more promising on paper than its realisation demonstrates.

Despite my education and interest in German and Germany, I was totally ignorant of this film's story, and so I can obviously not comment on how biased or truthful this film is in its…

Whilst the film has many positive elements from performances to cinematography the subject matter just feels far too big for one film. The Baader Meinhof Complex covers too much complicated history and focuses on too many individuals to really work as a single movie. The whole thing lacks cohesion and character development and shifts focus too many times meaning it ends up as a potted history of the group rather than a compelling study of the people at the heart of the Red Army Faction.

This could have been a stunning mini-series but trying to cover all its bases in only two and half hours was a huge mistake. Even Olivier Assayas’ Carlos suffered from this problem but that was…

2nd Letterboxd Festival - Film 7
Part of the No Rewatch November project.

If I was supposed to sympathize with any of the characters in this film, then I am definitely not the target audience for 'The Baader Meinhof Complex' since the only guy I cared for was Bruno Ganz's Horst Herold. He seemed to be the only individual in the whole film that used his brain.

If I was supposed to be interested in the complex reasons behind the creation, operation and implications of the RAF, then the movie failed me. Everything happened so fast, without even a split second to let either me or the characters to breathe and reflect on what was happening. The focus of the…

This is a bit of an odd beast.

It is a historical thriller that wants to give an objective representation of the historical occurrences around the Baader Meinhoff complex, yet also cast it in the mold of a stylized and tense thriller. And while it only partially succeeds in the first aspect, it more than succeeds in the latter.

If you're looking for an exploration of the motivations of this group of terrorists, look elsewhere. This film doesn't concern itself with that, they almost seem afraid to touch upon the deeper reasonings. They furthermore tend to glorify the lifestyle of the two protagonists a bit too much, slightly favouring them in their objective account. What we do get is a…

When I found out this was going to be in the Letterboxd Festival, I was so excited! I saw it years ago for my European Cinema class in college and fell in love with it from the opening scene. This time, I was a little less enthralled, but I still enjoyed it. It's a heavy film that tends to overwhelm the audience with detail, but the details are so interesting I didn't care most of the time. I feel like the first half is much more compelling than the second half, when the narrative shifts pretty abruptly from the birth of a movement to its decline. I'm not sure both sides of the story needed equal attention, but I can't…

Project WATFIO - #14 of 176

'The Baader Meinhof Complex' is about as close as German cinema has got to fully emulating Hollywood, and the film carries both the positives and negatives that such a stature can bring. With a bumper all-star German cast, representing almost every major film to come out of the nation in the past decade - from 'Lola Rennt' (Moritz Bleibtreu) to 'Das Leben der Anderen' (Martina Gedeck) - 'Baader Meinhof' appears a lot more promising on paper than its realisation demonstrates.

Despite my education and interest in German and Germany, I was totally ignorant of this film's story, and so I can obviously not comment on how biased or truthful this film is in its…

The Baader Meinhof Complex is a tough film, tough in as much as it portrays characters, real people no less, who are terrorists, but whom we are asked to feel sympathy, or at least empathy with. I suppose a decently comparison would be with films about the IRA such as Hunger and In The Name Of The Father, both of which don't excuse the actions of those we see, but do ask us to understand them. If you can approach this film in a similar way to that then it becomes a lot easier to watch.

The Baader Meinhof were a left wing terrorist organisation who opposed what they considered a Fascist government running Germany. Their main claims to the…

Week 7 of the Second Letterboxd Festival

I am starting to believe that it is next to impossible to make a great film about terrorists (Paradise Now excepted). Just once I would like to see a film in which all the characters in the theatre of terrorism are given the benefit of the doubt and shown to be reasonable players in a social conflict.

Der Baader Meinhof Complex isn't it. Much like Carlos, Baader, the leader of the terrorist group is painted as a volatile aggressive irresponsible man who flies off the handle and goes too far. Perhaps it is the nature of the beast, I don't know, but it would be interesting to let the audience in on why…