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CXLII: Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (Uli Edel (2008)
I confess I only knew the basic outline of this anti-government, anti-Vietnam terrorist group in Germany from the 1960s to the 1970s. It begins with a protest against the visit to Germany of the Shah of Iran (Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, eventually deposed in 1979 by Khomeni), the attack of that protest by pro-shah Iranians and then the bloody attack on the original protestors by the police. The protestors are increasingly radicalised, but initially aim at buildings not people, but later the police and the judiciary. There is a curious sense of balance - as in The Battle of Algiers - where you support the cause not the methods. And they get caught up in the politics of Jordan, Palestine and Israel - with their social agenda centuries ahead of the middle east. Meanwhile the brilliant Bruno Ganz as the chief of police (?) Horst Herold, trapped in the knowledge that the German reaction to the terrorism is wrong.
Some gripping performances, and as harrowing as Uli Edel always is.
Peur(s) du Noir (Fear(s) of the Dark, Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti and Richard McGuire, 2007)
A cartoon, you know, for kids. Extraordinary portmanteau, reminiscent is style and tone of those old 1950s horror comics - a voiceover discusses what scares her, an ugly figure leads a packs of slavering dogs through the landscape, a boy finds a strange insect, a Japanese girl is bullied at school, something is attacking a remote village, a middle-aged man is stuck in a haunted house... Most of the story is told in pure black and white, with grey introduced for a couple of interludes, and strategic use of red in one story. Several of the stories have a sense of memories or dreams, of looking back, and the whole is a series of nightmares. Gripping and stranegly beautiful and highly recommended.
143 (Cinema: 67; DVD: 71; TV: 5)
I confess I only knew the basic outline of this anti-government, anti-Vietnam terrorist group in Germany from the 1960s to the 1970s. It begins with a protest against the visit to Germany of the Shah of Iran (Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, eventually deposed in 1979 by Khomeni), the attack of that protest by pro-shah Iranians and then the bloody attack on the original protestors by the police. The protestors are increasingly radicalised, but initially aim at buildings not people, but later the police and the judiciary. There is a curious sense of balance - as in The Battle of Algiers - where you support the cause not the methods. And they get caught up in the politics of Jordan, Palestine and Israel - with their social agenda centuries ahead of the middle east. Meanwhile the brilliant Bruno Ganz as the chief of police (?) Horst Herold, trapped in the knowledge that the German reaction to the terrorism is wrong.
Some gripping performances, and as harrowing as Uli Edel always is.
Peur(s) du Noir (Fear(s) of the Dark, Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti and Richard McGuire, 2007)
A cartoon, you know, for kids. Extraordinary portmanteau, reminiscent is style and tone of those old 1950s horror comics - a voiceover discusses what scares her, an ugly figure leads a packs of slavering dogs through the landscape, a boy finds a strange insect, a Japanese girl is bullied at school, something is attacking a remote village, a middle-aged man is stuck in a haunted house... Most of the story is told in pure black and white, with grey introduced for a couple of interludes, and strategic use of red in one story. Several of the stories have a sense of memories or dreams, of looking back, and the whole is a series of nightmares. Gripping and stranegly beautiful and highly recommended.
143 (Cinema: 67; DVD: 71; TV: 5)
