Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The Foreign Language Film Complex

Variety reports that Germany has selected the film they want to represent them for the upcoming Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category. The film, The Baader Meinhof Complex - expect a namechange to The German Compex or something equally bland, surely - explores one of Germany's most volitile moments in history. And, no, it's not World War II! I know you're shocked! Why never! The Academy will never go for it! Do they even allow it?!

We'll see.

The film is adapted from a novel and is about the Red Army Faction, a violent terrorist organisation, in the late 1960s and 1970s. It is yet to be released in it's home country so there aren't too many reviews out there yet, but the reason my interest was piqued was because of the man behind the camera: Uli Edel. Perhaps not much of a recognisable name, but he's actually the director of a very excellent movie from 1989 called Last Exit to Brooklyn. The title is probably more famous than the movie itself. It was adapted from a book by the same author of Requiem for a Dream, so you can understand the sort of movie it is. It's very brutal, very queer, very dark, very good.

He also directed episode 14 from the second season of Twin Peaks. This was after the reveal of who killed Laura Palmer and just as Windom Earle was becoming the latest big storyline (alas, one that didn't rescue the series from bad ratings and subsequent axing).

Apart from direction some episodes of other shows such as Oz and Homicide: Life on the Street Edel has never recovered from the disaster that was Body of Evidence in 1993, but hopefully the news that The Baader Meinhof Complex has been Oscar-selected means he's created something great once again. We'll see in, oh, a year or so when it actually gets a release, I suppose. grrr.


J.D. said...

Gedeck, Ganz, AND Lara?!

Kamikaze Camel said...

Oh yeah! I didn't even mention the cast! Silly me.

Anonymous said...

j.d. You forgot Moritz Bleibtreu, one of the big young actors right now.

It's true that theory, the best new film industry in Europe right is in Germany. The Italian film industry right now is in decadence and the french is in transition.

Cal said...

It looks FUN! The title is kinda dull without the dumbing down anyway. For all of Body of Evidence's many faults it was the perfect title.

Nice to see them straying from the war, though I agree it's not gonna do them any favours with AMPAS.