The “Rote Armee Fraktion” (RAF) was a left wing extremist group in the seventies who managed to cause chaos and create fear in Germany. Initially the group was called the Baader-Meinhof group in the media (after Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof) and got their fame by bombings and robbing banks.
This movie tries to show how the group worked internally and the effects the group had on society. The group formed out of student protest groups who wanted to do say something about the war in Vietnam and their own government. During one of the protests things are no longer peaceful and someone is killed.
Ulrike Meinhof is a journalist who is a journalist for a left wing magazine who, together with Andreas Baader start the RAF. The group even goes to a militairy training camp and after it has enough knowledge to rob banks or perform a kidnapping.
The movie also shows the reaction of the government. One of the things i found interesting was the introduction of electronic systems, which would make it easier to find out who might be an extremist. Of course this is a subject which is still relevant.
Before i saw the film i really didn’t know anything about the group, except for the name. With these types of movies you never know if you’ll be able to understand the story without knowing anything about it the facts it is based on. The movie manages to tell the story in such a way that it will be easy for the viewer to follow it.
A lot of attacks by the group are shown and as a viewer you feel like you go along with them and feel the tension they feel.
Visually the movie recreates the seventies convincingly. This is done by clothing and use of news footage of that time period.
The number of German movies I’ve seen is low, but those I did see have impressed me. The lives of others, Der Untergang (which i have given an 8), and M (a 9) are all very good movies. There are still some on my to see list, like Metropolis and Das Boot which i hope reach the same levels of quality.
The acting in this movie is excellent, the story has been well written and visually it’s striking. So if you want to learn about some German history, this movie is an excellent choice.
Score: 8