Sunday, September 04, 2011

The Baader Meinhof Complex



I'm totally disappointed with this German movie about the most notorious terrorist group in the 20th century, The Badder Meinhof Complex.First of all this movie, which you see the FBI's warning at the beginning of i,t like all of the movies which are distributed in North America, has not been daubed. It has caption but the damn Germans talk too fast you barely can follow the subtitle!

Then how can you shrink the activities of a group like RAF which were active from 1970 to 1998 in a 02:30 movie without making it boring?! It's probably difficult. That is why did could not! It's always like this especially if the audience knows about the story. What I also did not expect was that the leaders of the group were captured and prisoned shortly after they started and then they got into fight in between themselves. How can you expect a group like that to reach its goals while there is no companionship and people are divided inside of it? Obviously they were not trained well enough to do those kinds of activities like setting bombs, robing banks and hostage taking and that is why as it's shown in the movie they go to Jordan to be trained but seems that it was not very helpful. One another big question is since when Westerners care about hungry people of Africa and South East Asia?! All Westerners have care about through centuries of civilization and before that was how to steal natural resources and cheap labour from the other countries. Going through history shows how Spanish, Portuguese and British cruised the oceans to find whatever they can take and no need to mention Americans slavery for years. Now all of a sudden, Germans, who had sensed that fell behind and initiated tow World Wars, have sympathy for the people who for decades were the Westerners' victim!A few scenes of the movie, the attack scenes are well filmed but the court scenes are really senseless and boring. I'm happy that I did not pay the full amount for this 2-CD case. But I'll keep that. Overall I the film changed my opinion on the group. I always imagines them as bunch of people who actually fought for something they deserved and were deprived of. The people who were well-trained and managed, with leaders who direct them through stages of operation. But the movies showed me the truth, just the way most of Westerners are: excessive alcohol drinking, smoking to death, cheating on your wife or husband, sleep with whoever is available because you have a great sexual desire at the moment, excessive use of profanity while talking to everyone even your spouse, parents or kids, getting angry and kicking at everything close and far(!) How is that other groups fights for decades and either gain something or remain alive but there's no sign of them now? According to the Web material they were active for almost 28 years what what had they gained during all those years? I am no supporter of ETA, PLO, Taliban or so but all these groups have been around for years and eventually forces their governments to either negotiate with them or at least accept part of their request. These guys of RAF got a big goose egg, may be only sympathy from a few number of their own people.

I once wanted to talk to one of Linde guys who was in the company that I worked for before my immigration, about the group but he was shocked and speechless for a moment and said nothing after all! No sympathy form him. He was really scared!

One last thing: Why the hell the movie was named a complex? There's nothing complex about them. There are questions but questions have answers. A complex is something made of interrelated and complicated parts. They were, the group members, where at times interrelated and at times apart(!) and there was nothing complicated about them. May be complex means something else in German. I should ask our German people in the company. I usually talk to two of them and there are more but they are kind of Nose in the Sky! One of them I like to see him a Nose Dive instead of Nose in the Sky! I will write if I get something from them.

(Photo: Andreas Baader, one of the founders of RAF, the group which is known as Baader-Meinhof. He committed suicide after his followers' attempts to exchange him with the hostages they took, failed)

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