[3 articles] Baader-Meinhof epic takes on RAF's 'terrorist chic'
http://www.thelocal.de/14437/20080921/ Published: 21 Sep 08 A German film taking a new look at the bloody legacy of the Baader Meinhof Gang will open this week, aiming to blot out the "terrorist chic" image of the 1970s urban guerrilla outfit. Reportedly the most expensive German picture ever made, "The Baader Meinhof Complex" is based on a bestseller by Stefan Aust, a former editor of the influential weekly Der Spiegel. It chronicles in exacting detail the wave of assassinations, bombings and kidnappings after the group, also known as the Red Army Faction (RAF), declared war on what it called the morally bankrupt West German state. The filmmakers say the picture, which will be released Thursday and has already been selected as Germany's entry in the Oscar race, will put an end to the glamourisation the young revolutionaries have undergone in popular culture in recent years. Some of the country's most influential critics have hailed the film as an authentic look at the most turbulent decade in postwar Germany. But several commentators, including children of the RAF's members and victims, say the A-list cast and estimated €20-million ($29-million) budget have created a titillating, irresponsible spectacle. "Bernd Eichinger claims that his film will destroy the RAF myth but the opposite is the case," one of Meinhof's daughters, 46-year-old journalist Bettina Röhl, wrote on her blog referring to the screenwriter and producer. "The 'Baader Meinhof Complex' is the worst-case scenario - it would be impossible to top its hero worship." The Baader Meinhof Gang, dubbed so after its founders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, captured the imagination of a generation that charged that their parents had failed to own up to Germany's Nazi past. Activists inspired by the 1960s student protests against the Vietnam War and US policy in the Middle East became radicalised, resorting to violence and mayhem to bring down West Germany's young democracy. A second generation of RAF members continued the campaign after Baader and Meinhof committed suicide in prison following their capture in 1972. But many sympathisers were eventually repelled by the band's reign of terror. It is believed to have killed 34 people before disbanding in 1998. "This was, and not just for me, the biggest German tragedy of the postwar period," said Eichinger, whose 2004 drama "Downfall" set in Hitler's bunker was nominated for an Academy Award. Like "Downfall" and the Stasi drama "The Lives of Others" which won the 2007 Academy Award for best foreign language film, "The Baader Meinhof Komplex" was conceived as a blockbuster to help Germans come to terms with another dark chapter of their past. The cast include Moritz Bleibtreu ("Run, Lola, Run") and Martina Gedeck ("The Lives of Others"), who appear in hipster clothing and indulge in free love, drag racing in stolen Porsches and orgiastic shoot-em-ups. A stint in a Palestinian militant training camp in Jordan in one scene turns into a farce when the female guerrillas insist on sunbathing in the buff within the sights of the Muslim fighters. The film has drawn comparisons with Steven Spielberg's "Munich" in its structure and themes, examining the corrupting power of fierce idealism when the ends are to justify the means. In recent years, a handful of films and television programmes on the RAF including the 2002 biopic "Baader" were accused of lionising the charismatic, if fanatical, protagonists. T-shirts emblazoned with "Prada Meinhof" or the RAF's Heckler and Koch machine gun logo rode a wave of "terrorist chic" among 20-somethings in German cities. The film received major public funding and the German government, ever wary of extremism, threw its support behind the project. "It's time we had an unflinching look at this topic using film as a medium. Until now, movies tended to make heroes out of the main characters," the president of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Thomas Krueger, told German radio, praising the filmmakers' efforts. "But this is a blood stain that soaks a strain of German history. It needs to be confronted honestly." Jörg Schleyer, son of industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer who was murdered by the RAF in the notorious "German Autumn" of 1977, also raved about the picture after its gala premiere. "The 'Baader Meinhof Complex' shows the wanton brutality of the RAF without sullying its victims' memory," Schleyer, 54, told the daily Bild. "You see how my father's chauffeur and another passenger in the car were just slaughtered. It hurts me to watch that but it is the only way to make clear to young people how brutal and bloodthirsty the RAF was at that time. They were not rebels or freedom fighters. They were murderers." The film has been sold to several foreign markets and will be released in Britain and France in November. ------- Baader Meinhof film stirs controversy in Germany http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/3024047/Baader-Meinhof-film-stirs-controversy-in-Germany.html Germany will confront another dark chapter from its recent past this week when a new and violent film claiming to debunk the myths surrounding the country's 1970s Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang goes on general release. By Tony Paterson in Berlin 21 Sep 2008 The controversial The Baader-Meinhof Complex is a warts-and-all depiction by the producer Bernd Eichinger, who won fame with his taboo-breaking 2004 hit Downfall, about Hitler's last days in his besieged Berlin bunker. His new work on the Left-wing Baader-Meinhof gang also known as the Red Army Faction is reputed to be the most expensive German film ever made. Starring some of the country's top actors, it sets out to remind the German public that the gang members were vicious killers, rather than the glamorous but misguided revolutionaries that some now prefer to remember. However, the film, which hopes to emulate the success of The Lives of Others, the 2007 Academy Award winner about the East German Stasi spy network, has been criticised for its violence. Children of Baader-Meinhof gang members, and the gang's victims, have described it as tasteless hero worship, while some of the former terrorists have complained that the production is a callous attempt to reap box office profits. The gang killed at least 33 mainly prominent members of former West Germany's political and industrial establishment between 1970 and 1991. Founded by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, it emerged from the Leftist student and anti-Vietnam war movements of the 1960s. But while its members were both violent and criminal, they were also considered to be expressing an anger that many Germans born after the war felt towards their parents' generation, whom they commonly viewed as accomplices to the Nazi era. As a result, previous German films have tended to portray the group with a degree of sympathy. The brutality of their kidnappings, aircraft hijackings and murders was played down, while their perceived role as victims of a morally bankrupt society was emphasised. One film, by the director Christoph Roth, portrayed Baader as an eminently "cool" individual. The Baader-Meinhof Complex breaks with that tradition. In one scene a female gang member is shown wheeling a pram across a zebra crossing to stop the car of an assassination target. She pulls a machine-gun out of the pram and pumps a seemingly endless stream of bullets into the vehicle. However, the film has been accused of reducing a complex terrorist era to a mere "action movie". Michael Buback, the son of Siegfried Buback, the German state prosecutor murdered by the gang, has complained that the film insults the dignity of his family. "I have to ask myself whether it is right to show my father's murder in this way," he said. Bettina Rohl, Meinhof's daughter, dismissed it as "unabashed hero worship". Equally critical was Christof Wackernagel, a former gang member, who said: "This film is just about making money. It makes me sick." -------- Meinhof drama submitted for Oscar http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7620460.stm 17 September 2008 A movie about the militant left-wing Baader Meinhof group has been named as Germany's official entry for the 2009 foreign language film Oscar. Premiered in Munich on Tuesday, The Baader Meinhof Complex stars Moritz Bleibtreu and Martina Gedeck as the leaders of the 1970s terrorist group. More than 30 people were killed by the Baader-Meinhof gang, or the Red Army Faction as it later became known. Uli Edel's drama will be screened at the London Film Festival in October. The Baader Meinhof gang, named after Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, carried out bombings, kidnappings and assassinations in the 1970s and '80s in an attempt to topple the German state. Suicide Meinhof committed suicide in prison in 1976, with Baader following suit the following year. The film opens in Germany on 25 September and is scheduled for a UK release on 14 November. Germany is one of a number of countries to unveil their foreign film Oscar submissions in the run-up to next year's Academy Awards. Others include Sweden, Belgium, Brazil and Austria, winner of this year's award for Holocaust drama The Counterfeiters. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the five nominees for the prize on 22 January. Cold War thriller The Lives of Others, another German submission, won the award in 2007. . --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to sixties-l@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
