The Miracle of Bern (5 Stars)

Doesn't Katharina Wackernagel remind you of the Matrix's woman in red? She's the face of the new Germany. Everyone else is wearing dull colours and sitting meekly, like good Germans are expected to do. Katharina is wearing bright red, and she's jumping up and down waving a German flag. Patriotism can be a good or a bad thing, depending on the circumstances, but I always respect a woman who rebels against convention. Especially when it's a beautiful woman like Katharina.

This is the exact opposite. While Katharina is jumping up and down waving her flag, the German monks are sitting with their bread and cheese, huddled around a radio in a small room. That's a sad life for sad men.

"The Miracle of Bern" is a difficult film to describe in a few words. It has different plots running in parallel that belong to different genres. It's been described as a sports film. While that's true, it doesn't begin to describe the film's complexity.

The film is about Germany's Football World Cup victory in 1954. Before anyone says "So what?" let me point out that Germany had never won the World Cup before then. They were outsiders, not even expected to get into the quarter finals. Hungary, the clear favourites, defeated Germany 8:3 in the opening round, and the two teams met again in the final. Germany miraculously rebounded from being 2:0 down to winning the match 3:2.

The story is told through the eyes of Richard Lubanski and his family. In summer 1954 he returned to Germany after spending 11 years in a Russian prison. He would have returned earlier, but he was given an extra five years for stealing a loaf of bread while he was in prison. Can you blame him? Most days there wasn't any food, and he says that the prisoners around him were dying of hunger.

He's come back to Essen, a city in ruins. The city hasn't been rebuilt because there's no money to pay for it. His wife Christa has been running a small pub. His 17-year-old son Bruno is a Communist who dreams of moving to East Germany where "everyone can say what he thinks". His 16-year-old daughter flirts with British soldiers in the family pub because it's good for business. His 11-year-old son Mathias, who was born after he left home, makes money by selling cigarettes. Matthias has a new father figure, Helmut Rahn, a member of the German World Cup squad.

Richard finds that he doesn't fit in. He's incapable of returning to his job as a coal miner for physical and psychological reasons. He wants to be a strict father, but his children reject his authority. In prison he at least knew who he was, but back home he's a nobody.

Germany is caught up in World Cup fever, while Richard is just fighting to survive from one day to the next. He goes to church to ask the priest for help, but all the priest wants to talk about is football. Maybe that's what the film is really about. It shows that football creates new hope. Winning the World Cup was the first step in healing Germany after the War.

Katharina Wackernagel plays Annette Ackermann, showing the contrast in German society. She comes from a rich family that survived the Second World War with its wealth intact. She lives in a big home in Munich, and she's married to a sports reporter. She doesn't understand football. She doesn't need football in her life. Or does she? Maybe the rich Germans had different problems that needed healing.

For someone who doesn't even like football, the woman in red yells the loudest when Helmut Rahn scores Germany's winning goal. Earlier in the game she was the only one standing and cheering on the German team. Now all the men are standing up with her. Not the women. Germany's women needed another few decades to catch up with her.

"The Miracle of Bern" was released in 2003, and it's one of Germany's most successful films. It was seen by more than six million people in the cinemas. It's about German pride, and more to the point, it's about not being ashamed to be German.

Baader Meinhof Komplex (4 Stars)

I clearly remember the first time I saw this film in 2008. It was shown at the Empire Cinema in Birmingham Broad Street, which has since become a Cineworld cinema. I was excited about it because German films were rarely shown in Birmingham's cinemas. That's still the case today. While I was waiting upstairs I overheard an elderly couple speaking German with one another. It was something special for them as well.

The film was overwhelming, from the first few minutes onwards. I still consider the scene with the demonstration against the Shah of Iran in 1967 to be one of the best filmed scenes ever. I sat in my seat open-mouthed, hardly able to take it all in. That continued to the end of the film, even though the last hour of the film had less action. That's a "problem" with true stories. The pacing can't be planned, it just happens.

When I walked out of the cinema my thoughts were, "Wow! That's the best film I've ever seen". I bought the film on DVD as soon as it was released. I also bought the extended version, even though it's only 15 minutes longer. I watched it frequently between 2009 and 2010. Slowly my opinion on the film changed. I no longer consider it the best film ever made, or even the best German film. Today I wouldn't even place it in the top 50 German films. So what happened?

There are problems with the end of the film that I noticed when I first saw the film, but I overlooked them as artistic license. After repeated viewing the last half hour annoys me. By now it's got so bad that I don't think I can watch the film again. I only watched it today because it stars Bruno Ganz as Horst Herold, the head of the German police. This is doubtlessly one of his best performances. He's such a quiet, unassuming figure, determined to stop the rise of terrorism, but not hot-headed enough to make rash decisions. I especially like the scene where he serves his top advisers lobster soup while discussing police matters. This makes me smile. He's calm and collected, making others think he's not taking the problems seriously, but if people can no longer enjoy lobster soup terrorism has won.

To sum up my problems with the film: it's the true story of the Red Army Faction, commonly called the Baader-Meinhof Gang, from 1967 to 1977. The film begins with the visit of the Shah to Berlin and ends with the assassination of the industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer. The film is told with almost photographic documentary precision for the first two hours. Then it falls apart in the last half hour. Instead of sticking to proven facts it shows wild theories for which there is no proof.

The fact is that on 18th October 1977 three terrorists, Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Gudrun Ensslin were found dead in their cells in Stammheim, Germany's highest security prison. Baader and Raspe died of gunshot wounds, Ensslin was hanged. On the same morning the terrorist Irmgard Möller was found with four stab wounds in her chest, but she survived.

A police inquest claimed that the three deaths were the result of suicide. Möller, who is still alive today, claims that she was stabbed by masked men who entered her cell at night, but this was never proved. It's impossible to verify what happened because the prison's security cameras were turned off and the security guard on the seventh floor was called away from his post for three hours.

The story that Andreas Baader and his three fellow terrorists were executed is called a conspiracy theory by those who believe the German state would never act unlawfully. I know what conspiracy theories are. They're theories that people decide to believe, even though the facts prove the opposite. In this case there are no facts that prove it was suicide, and all the clues point to an execution, so I consider the suicide story to be a conspiracy theory.

In the last half hour the film builds up an elaborate theory about how a lawyer smuggled guns into the cells of Baader and Raspe. At meetings Brigitte Mohnhaupt made lengthy speeches about Baader and Ensslin wanting to end their lives on their own terms. There is no proof for this. My opinion is that Stefan Aust, the journalist on whose book the film is based, had a personal agenda in promoting the suicide theory, and the director Uli Edel followed his thoughts blindly. The film would have been better if the deaths of Baader and his friends had been left open. It would have been more satisfying to see them dead in their cells, then see different people arguing about whether it was suicide or an execution. The viewer should be allowed to make up his own mind rather than being subjected to a conspiracy theory.

I'll end this post with a few snapshots of the magnificent Martina Gedeck playing the role of Ulrike Meinhof. She's one of my favourite actresses, and this is her best ever performance. She perfectly portrays a woman who starts out as a brilliant journalist, then becomes an author of fanatical pamphlets before finally being driven to madness by three years of solitary confinement.

These snapshots aren't just for my readers. They're also intended to remind me of her performance in this film, because I probably shan't watch it again.

I defend my four star rating. I'd give the first two hours five stars and the last half hour one star. That makes an average of four stars. Approximately.

Success Rate:  - 1.2

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de

Stralsund - Außer Kontrolle (4 Stars)

The title of this film means "Out of control". It was made two years after "Mörderische Verfolgung", which I reviewed yesterday, but the action in the film seems to take place shortly afterwards, because the Stralsund chief of police has only recently been replaced after her injuries in the first film.

In this film a money transporter has been ambushed by a pair of criminals. One of the security guards is killed, and the other is trapped in the back of the vehicle when it's driven away. The police search in vain for the vehicle, but it's been disguised too well to be identified. The police's only hope is to find clues that will identify the criminals. Once more Nina Petersen has to solve the case, but this time she has problems. Her work is hindered by a senior police officer who pulls rank and insists on solving the case himself. When Nina realises that he's making mistakes she takes matters into her own hands.

Once more this is a gripping thriller. A theme repeated from the first film is criminals turning on one another when they're under pressure. If anything, we get to know the criminals better than the police. This is a very well written and directed film. I attribute this to Martin Eiger, who was responsible for writing and directing 28 made-for-television crime thrillers from 2003 to 2015.

Stralsund - Mörderische Verfolgung (4 Stars)

This is a German film that was made for television in 2009. The title can mean either "Deadly Pursuit" or "Deadly Persecution", and both translations are appropriate. It was originally intended as a one-off film, but it was remarkably succesful and was watched by almost six million viewers, so from 2011 to 2015 seven sequels were made. They all feature the police force in Stralsund and particularly police inspector Nina Petersen, played by Katharina Wackernagel. I'm not sure whether "inspector" is an accurate translation of her rank, because the German police have a different structure to their English and American equivalents. In German her rank is "Kommissar". She's a uniformed police officer who has a lot of responsibility in solving cases, so she seems to be more like a detective.

The plot: Michael Broder's company burnt down. When he tried to claim insurance he was wrongly accused of starting the fire himself, so he killed the person who accused him of arson. The law isn't always fair, and insurance companies are rarely fair, but murder isn't a good solution. He was arrested and sent to prison.

Six month later the Stralsund chief of police, Susanne Winkler, receives a phone call from her ex-lover Mona to meet her at an insurance company. It's the same company which dealt with Michael Broder's claim. When she arrives she finds the staff tied and gagged, and she too is overpowered by a masked man. He demands two million Euros and the release of Michael Broder.

This is an exciting thriller with twists and turns as the plot develops. It's more original than any other hostage dramas I've seen. Right up to the end it isn't obvious what will happen next. The situation can only be solved by Nina Petersen's skillful psychological ploy, managing to turn the hostage taker and his accomplices against one another.

Mord am Höllengrund (4 Stars)

This is a typical German crime film, a detective story, a whodunnit, or whatever else you would like to call it. The Germans call it a Krimi, a simple word that sums up the genre of films in which someone is murdered and the police have to solve the case. As I've told my readers in the past, Germans are fascinated by Krimis. About half the films made in Germany each year are Krimis, usually made for television, but that doesn't mean that they're of low quality. Television movies in Germany are frequently of very high quality. Unfortunately, very few of the German Krimis are ever made available outside of Germany. My English speaking readers will have to learn German if they want to watch them. I expect that now I'm in Germany I'll be watching a lot of Krimis, so wait for my  upcoming reviews.

The film's title means "Murder at Höllengrund". Höllengrund is the name of an area in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, a mountainous region close to the border with Austria. The main character is Sabine Sonntag, an artist whose job is to make reconstructions for a local museum. Her 18-year-old son Ilya plans to take his girlfriend Cora on a trip to Italy. He has to pick her up from a cave in Höllengrund where she has spent the night. After Ilya leaves Sabine sees that he has forgotten his passport, so she drives to the cave to give it to him. She finds his car parked on the road, but he isn't at the cave. What she does find is Cora's body, barely covered in a shallow grave. She goes back to the car to wait for her son, but when she gets there his car is gone. Since she suspects that Ilya killed his girlfriend she doesn't report it to the police. But the police soon find the body, and they treat Ilya as the main suspect.

This is a thrilling murder mystery. Even though all the clues point at Ilya, it's obvious to the viewer that he isn't the killer. That would make the film too simple. When the killer was finally revealed it was a shock to me. He was skilfully disguised throughout the film, with only the slightest hints that it might have been him.

One of the things remarkable about the film is the society in the fictional small town of Aubach. There are no intact families. There are four women, including Sabine, all of whom are single mothers. The women go out on girls' nights, getting drunk without any men waiting for them at home. The men in the film are also single, and they all seem to be interested in Sabine. I'd be interested in her as well.

Sabine Sonntag is played by Katharina Wackernagel, an actress who appears in a lot of German Krimis. Usually she plays the detective, but in this case she's a (maybe not so) innocent bystander. The biggest role she has played was as the terrorist Astrid Proll in "Baader Meinhof Complex". If you're English, she's probably the best actress that you've never heard of. I'll try to watch more of her films over the next few months.

Baader Meinhof Komplex (4 Stars)

"What we need is a new morality".

When I first saw this film I was in awe. It was the best German film I had ever seen. Even after repeated viewing on DVD I praised it highly. It wasn't until watching it today that my opinion began to change. For 1 hour 55 minutes it's a work of genius. Then it begins to turn. The last half hour is disgusting propaganda for the official German bourgeoisie.

The film is based on a book by Stefan Aust, who was a friend of Andreas Baader in his early years, but then split away from him. The extended version of the film (not the version I watched today) contains a brief scene where Stefan himself appears. Evidently the break up from Andreas Baader was serious enough to cause Stefan to tell lies which have been repeated in the film.

For those who don't know the events of 1977, let me explain. In the night of October 18th, 1977 the four terrorists being held in separate cells in Germany's top security prison, Stammheim, committed suicide. Andreas Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe shot themselves. Gudrun Ensslin hanged herself. Irmgard Möller stabbed herself four times in the chest, but narrowly missed her heart and survived. To any sane thinking person it's inconceivable that prisoners could smuggle guns into their cells. Apart from this, after recovering Irmgard Möller claimed that masked men had entered her cell and stabbed her. Gudrun Ensslin's body was badly bruised as if she had been beaten. But what did the prison's security cameras show? There was a power failure that night, so the cameras weren't working. How convenient!

The film shows the lawyer smuggling guns to Andreas Baader during the trial, but there is no evidence that this ever happened. The intention of the film is to poison the minds of the viewers to accept the official story, rather than the truth. The last half hour of the film has Brigitte Mohnhaupt repeatedly stating that the imprisoned terrorists would end their lives at the time of their choice. This is pure propaganda, and the more it's repeated the more sickening it gets.

Before I finish, I'd like to point out that I don't agree that we need a new morality. It's just a quote from the film, in my eyes a very significant quote. The new morality of the Baader Meinhof group involved killing one's enemies, without paying heed to anyone else who died as collateral damage. The old morality is better.

Baader Meinhof Komplex (5 Stars)

This is the true story of the terror wave in Germany from 1967 to 1977 carried out by the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction), more commonly referred to as the Baader-Meinhof Gang. The film begins with the visit of the Shah of Persia to West Berlin, and it ends with the execution of German industrial boss Hanns Martin Schleyer. The film is made with documentary precision, and yet remains exciting throughout. All of the outdoor scenes were filmed in the same places that the original events occurred. Scenes well known from photos taken at the time are reproduced, including the exact positioning of cars and people in the scenes.

This 10-year period in German history is difficult for non-Germans to understand. The RAF were by their own admission terrorists, and yet they enjoyed great public support. At their peak opinion polls claimed that 25% of Germans under 30 were sympathetic of them. Why? The film attempts to answer that question, although it would have to be twice as long to go into the issues in full detail. After the Second World War Germany was divided into two parts, the democratic west and the Communist east. Germany, especially Berlin, was on the front line of the Cold War. Any east-west conflict would have begun in Germany. For this reason the West German government was anxious to suppress any elements in its own country that it saw as Communist. Mostly this suppression was aimed at university students. This is shown clearly in the example of the Shah's visit to West Berlin. When the Shah arrived German students chanted "Down with the Shah". A group of Iranian students (who were actually members of the Iranian secret police) attacked the German students. The German police reacted by brutally attacking the German students who attempted to flee. Although there were many injuries, the shooting of the innocent bystander Benno Ohnesorg by Karl-Heinz Kurras, a plain-clothes policeman, was the catalyst for future protests and the creation of the RAF. People expected justice, but when Kurras was brought to trial he was found innocent. It wasn't until January 2012 that it was revealed that evidence against him had been hidden from the prosecutors.

The film is divided into two parts. The first part shows the active years of Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof. The second part shows their time in prison and their trial. They were three very different people. Baader was the spontaneous hothead who thought terrorism was fun. Ensslin was the intellectual who gave the group its political direction. Meinhof was the voice of reason. In the second part of the film we see Meinhof's mental deterioration after three years in solitary confinement and her suicide in 1976.

A problem that non-Germans (and even younger Germans) might have with the film is to know who everyone is. So many characters come and go in the film. Some are introduced by their first name only, others aren't named at all. A commentary track that explains who people are would be a welcome addition to future DVD and Blu-ray releases. A featurette could explain the history and importance of the characters in more detail.

The final words in the film, spoken by Brigitte Mohnhaupt to the other terrorists gathered around her after the news was reported of Andreas Baader's death, can be interpreted as a mission statement for the film, directed at the viewers: "You never knew the people. Stop seeing them as they never were." This is a good motive. 30 years later Baader and his gang are still controversial figures in Germany. Some see him as an evil Communist who wanted to bring down the West German government, while others see him as an idealist standing up to a re-emergence of Fascism in Germany. Baader is either hated, or he's portrayed as a glamorous rock star freedom fighter. Based on the knowledge of people who knew him personally, the film shows his strengths as well as his weaknesses. For instance, the RAF is known as the first terrorist group in which women had leading roles, but the film shows Baader as a sexist who regarded women as inferior members of his gang. "You cunts and your emancipation! It's all about shouting at your husbands!"

On October 18th 1977 Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin committed suicide in Stammheim prison. In the same night Jan-Carl Raspe killed himself.

My only criticism of the film is that it follows the official line of events, rather than leaving them open for the viewer to judge. The suicide itself is very controversial, even today. Claims that the terrorists were executed in prison are dismissed as a conspiracy theory, but unlike other conspiracy theories a lot of facts speak for it.

Baader and Raspe killed themselves by shooting themselves. The idea that prisoners in Germany's highest security prison had guns in their cells is so ridiculous that it defies all credibility. The film shows Baader's lawyer giving him a gun during the trial, but there is no independent proof that this ever happened.

According to the autopsy Baader was shot in the back of the neck from a distance of 15 inches. This is an impossible feat. I attempted this myself, and the furthest I could hold a gun away would be 10 inches. Even if the autopsy is inaccurate, don't people who shoot themselves hold the gun against themselves, pointing it in their mouth or pressing it against their head? Holding the gun in an awkward position increases the chance of a non-fatal glancing wound, or even a wound that would lead to permanent crippling.

Gudrun Ensslin's body was bruised as if she had been beaten prior to her suicide.

Irmgard Möller also attempted suicide in the same night by stabbing herself four times in the chest, barely missing her heart. Is this possible? Four times? She survived, and ever since the incident she denies it was suicide. She claims that she was attacked by masked intruders in her cell.

In the night of the collective suicide there was a power failure in the prison, meaning that the prison was dark and the cameras didn't function.

One of the regular guards on the floor where the terrorists' cells were located was called away from his post for three hours and assured that he would be replaced. Nothing is known of who replaced him during this time.