The Baader Meinhof Complex

Given how plenty of the issues mentioned still linger today, The Baader Meinhof Complex is hesitant to take a side and condemn or defend the group it depicts. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Having some distance from the subject helps keep the accuracy of the events, which is already thrilling and controversial enough on its own. It’s what makes the film interesting. Rather than choose a side, Director Uli Edel and writer-producer Bernd Eichinger take their story to explore what it means to fight for one’s ideals in a modern world, raising more questions than providing conclusive answers. It’s this intricacy makes The Baader Meinhof Complex not an easy watch, but an intriguing one nonetheless.

When German police viciously quell a protest against the shah of Iran, popular journalist Ulrike Meinhof rebels against her dishonest marriage, walks away from her children and joins radical anarchist Andreas Baader. Together with Baader's girlfriend, Gudrun Ensslin, they form the violent Red Faction Army, and together perpetrate a slew of terrorist attacks as a way of disrupting the fabric of what they see as an increasingly fascist state.