Baader (2002)

Baader (2002)

Chronicles the rise of ’70s West German terrorist Andreas Baader from his beginnings as a small-time car thief to his stint as the leader of the Marxist revolutionary Red Army Faction.

A beautifully filmed and excellently played film that conveys in the first half a lot about the life, the thinking, the hopes, and the dreams of those who later became known as the terrorists of the RAF. I like the ironic approach of both script and direction towards these people who thought about themselves as revolutionaries when they were still only a group of bourgeois youngsters looking for their way. The characters were excellently drawn and the dynamics inside the group - especially the psychological pressure put on the others by Andreas Baader - were well conveyed.

The film has some important flaws though, especially concerning the script and the plotline.

I did not understand for example why the storyline had to stray away in the second half from the historical events to a mythical depiction - like in the 'heroic' ending or in the obviously fictitious meeting between police chief Krone and Baader in the night on the road.

But the major flaw of this film is for me that it never addressed all the murders and abductions the RAF conducted, it never put forward that very moment when they really became a lot of unscrupulous terrorists from a bunch of disoriented young people dreaming about the revolution.

All in all a watchable, well made biopic that still leaves a bad taste in the mouth as it abandons at times an exact depiction of historical events to myths and fairy tales. (IMDB  meitschi) V&D?