In the film, The Baader Meinhof Complex, just as the character Horst Harold had predicted, the Red Army Faction regenerated and evolved. Andreas makes a point of saying that, compared to the second and third generations of the faction, they’re actions seem relatively mild. The first generation, under the orders of Andreas, Gudrun, and Ulrike, was guided by a different central policy and a different morality. Andreas and Gudrun, having initiated the once distant and skeptical Ulrike, become the intellectuals. When the movie begins, Ulrike, as a journalist, appears to be the revolutionary intellectual of the movement, but she quickly leaves behind her “intellectual masturbation” for action. Driving down the road, Andreas hands Peter a gun. “Only a gun makes things fun,” he says to Peter. Peter goes on to become a part of the generation that hijacks the civilian flight, motivated to finish what Andreas and Gudrun started. Motivated by a myth.

 

But the myth here is more than a myth of righteousness, as Horst seems to suggest in the film: it is a myth of roles. The elephant in the room appears to be the thought that intellectuals are as much products of revolutionary moments as they are catalysts. There appears to be a notion of the intellectual as a progressive but constant variable in the equation of revolutionary change, an assumption that the intellectual can see a single, correct outcome of a series of still unknown events, and maintains that vision to the end. More specifically, there is an assumption that the intellectual has the ability to maintain that vision to the end. The intellectual ceases to be human, organic or otherwise. Gudrun is a symbol of this in her search for a “new morality” for the faction. Ulrike Meinhof, once a journalist well-known for her bold writing, becomes a criminal, known for her bold action. The film suggests that fear and panic turned her away from the pen and towards the gun, as well as a need for approval from Gudrun, especially in the scene where they help Andreas escape. She stands at the wall for a moment, stunned, then escapes alongside the others, deviating from the original plan, and essentially “outing” herself as a member of the faction, ending her career as a journalist, and destroying her family. As much of an intellectual character as she was in the film, she clearly didn’t consider those repercussions, and likely didn’t know. The intellectual becomes human.

 

Professor Malekzadeh asked if this isn’t too much Freud? How can fucking and shooting be seen as the same thing? Isn’t this almost psychopathic? Perhaps, but I think that avoids answering the question that Horst tries to answer:

“What motivates them?”

“A myth.”