RAVE - The Baader Meinhof Complex

I grew up watching on TV the "action" (i.e. crimes committed) by various pseudo-terrorist organizations around the world - IRA, ETA, PLO and many others.

It's hard to get a clear view when events are developing around you, which is why documentaries made several years after the fact can be so enlightening.

Some of my favorite films in this regard are All The Presidents Men, JFK, Nixon (the stuff that has kept Oliver Stone busy for most of his career).

The lines between Freedom Fighter, Revolutionary and Terrorist are blurred.

Anyhow, to Germany in the 1970s: Left wing activists Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof graduated from political sloganeering to bombings, bank robbery, airline hijackings and assassination of establishment figures they likened to the fascists that had ruined Germany in WWII.

They formed the Red Army Faction (RAF), and spread terror through Germany until a computer-based approach to weeding out un-registered residents led to their arrests and trials in the late 70s.

It started out as a somewhat RAF-biased film, suggesting that police-state brutality in Germany provoked the left into action. But as time progressed - in the movie and in real life - the real story of honorable protest turned cold-blooded murder was told.

A serious and enlightening film.