Published 30 April 200930 April 2009 · Main Posts The Baader Meinhof Complex Rjurik Davidson Managed to see The Baader-Meinhof Complex last night, a recent German film about the famous radical left-wing terrorist group. It continues in the recent vein of novels and films which a kind of critical but romantic view of the radical left-wing terrorist groups of the late sixties and early seventies (the Weather Underground in the US, etc). Typically, the film is light on political context. It does make some attempt to present the logic of the group, but there really isn’t much debate presented (and certainly not from those on the left but from the broader movement who I’m sure (as in the US) would have been arguing against the use of terror), and at other times the film presents the group (particularly Andreus Baader) as crazed madmen. I know a lot less about the Baader-Meinhof group than I do the Weather Underground, so I can’t comment so much on the details, but I’m not sure you’ll get a particularly deep understanding from the film. In addition, it’s pretty long, and V, who I went with, squirmed her way through the last hour of the two and a half hours. I hadn’t eaten beforehand, so was becoming increasingly cranky as the last half-hour concentrated on the various attempts to rescue them from jail. The film is particularly monotonal – lacking in emotional dynamism – preferring to concentrate on the violence and the almost thriller-like aspects rather than presenting us with more human and personal moments (Baader and his partner don’t have a single moment onscreen alone together that I can remember, for example). I couldn’t find the trailer in English, but here it is in German. Rjurik Davidson Rjurik Davidson is a writer, editor and speaker. Rjurik’s novel, The Stars Askew was released in 2016. Rjurik is a former associate editor of Overland magazine. He can be found at rjurik.com and tweets as @rjurikdavidson. More by Rjurik Davidson › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 28 March 20249 April 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body. 5 March 2024 · Main Posts Andrew Charlton’s school assignment Alex McKinnon Australia's Pivot to India exists for three reasons: so that when Andrew Charlton is interviewed on the radio or introduced on Q+A, his bio includes the phrase "he has written a book about Indian-Australian relations"; to fend off accusations that he is another Kristina Keneally engaging in electoral colonialism in western Sydney; and to help the Albanese government strengthen economic and military ties with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.