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Review: The Baader-Meinhof Complex

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baader-meinhof-complex_56RECOMMENDED

A romance about terrorists and foiled ideals and fitful dreams: is that permitted? In Uli Edel’s entertaining if less-than-coherent rollercoaster docudrama “The Baader-Meinhof Complex,” a collection of post-Nazi-generation radicals calling themselves the Red Army Faction, led by journalist Ulrike Meinhof and activists Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, trouble 1970s Germany. A serious subject discussed in the omnibus film “Autumn in Germany” and fictionalized in R. W. Fassbinder’s “The Third Generation,” Edel’s approach, produced and co-written by Bernd Eichinger (“Downfall”)  is less weighty, at times even exploitative, yet at moments more discerning: what of youth’s arrogant impulses could lead to such forms of revolt, unlikely to sway common burgher or privileged politician? The lessons for today are implicit; the lectures few; the narrative clotted and wayward. Lovingly shot  by Rainer Klausmann (“The Lemon Tree,” “Downfall,” “Head-On”). With Simon Licht, Alexandra Maria Lara, Bruno Ganz, Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu, Hannah Herzsprung, Susanne Bormann, Nadja Uhl, Volker Bruch, Jasmin Tabatabai. 150m.  (Ray Pride)

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