The Baader Meinhof Complex is an interesting film, in that it incorporates a rather complex and often confusing narrative about terrorists that were convinced that they were opposing Nazi’s. They believed this because they were. After the fallout of World War II much of the Nazi party retained their jobs in an effort to quickly rebuild Germany. As the children of that generation began to grow up they found it odd that the people who were responsible for the horrors of Nazi-era Germany were still running much of the country. And as students began to protest this setup, and the German government continued to punish them for it, it started the inevitable cycle of terror that would rip through the country for the next decade.
Unfortunately I am no where near well versed enough on Germany’s post-war history to be much of an authority, and as such The Baader Meinhof Complex often comes across as a convoluted mess, at least plot wise. But the ideas it is speaking of are both fascinating and challenging. The Baader Meinhof Complex initially romanticizes the actions of the Red Army Faction, as they were students who felt it was their civic duty to stand up to the conservative government that was running the country and was still populated with Nazi’s. But, as their revolution lengthens and more and more generations of revolutionaries join their cause the film shifts in tone, as it recognizes that this course of action results in no winners, just death, destruction and fear.
The Baader Meinhof Complex is a fascinating film, and it certainly argues some very interesting, if not controversial points, but it seems to need a bit more refinement in its plotting to make things easier for viewers such as myself to follow it. I know the big events (the Munich Games and the Lufthansa hijacking for instance) but I know little of the players in this game and the film does little to flesh them out, which results in The Baader Meinhof Complex being an interesting film, but far from a great one.
You’d think that I would be a fan of war films, but for whatever reason, I’m not. Of sure I like most modern war films, and I have a soft spot for exploitive films like Commando or Red Dawn, but old school John Wayne/John Ford war films? They just don’t interest me in the slightest.
To be fair much of this general apathy is due to the fact I’m not much of a fan of John Wayne in general. Most of the blame for that can be laid at my father’s feet, as he didn’t put much effort into indoctrinating me to The Duke at a young age, though that is because he isn’t much of a fan of John Wayne either. Oh sure he likes him, and if a John Wayne film comes on TV he will sit down and watch it until the end regardless of how many times he has already seen the film, but that is just about as much effort as he will go to. If asked he will say “I love John Wayne.” and he does mean it. But he doesn’t love John Wayne like he loves It’s a Wonderful Life or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s filmography (For the record he is particularly fond of Predator and Total Recall). So while he never took me to a John Wayne film, he certainly took me to Schwarzenegger films (and Sylvester Stallone films, and Kurt Russell films, and Jean-Claude Van Damme films), and as an adolescent in the 80’s you really couldn’t ask for much more out of a father.
But since I was never exposed to John Wayne as a child, I never developed that particular allowance that one must have with John Wayne, that being that all of his movies are exactly the same. Never a time was this fact more obvious then this past Christmas, when my family stumbled upon an old John Wayne western that was playing.
Since I’ve been wallowing in the muck of Ozploitation and a few other less then “art” films (though I would argue they most certainly were artistic), I figured it would be time to take a drastic change in course and dive head first into the works of Samuel Fuller. While I’m not a huge fan of war films, I do have several that I like to watch, and Fuller is widely heralded for his own personal style and take on the war film that didn’t glorify it, but rather dragged the audience into the war itself. Needless to say I am very excited to watch The Steel Helmet.
Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and Jim Jarmusch talk about The Steel Helmet
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