Baader Meinhof/Generation Kill

By chance I saw two motion picture events this week that I feel the sudden urge to pointlessly type away into this thing about.

Number one is The Baader Meinhof Complex. I saw this Wednesday night and found it an extremely interesting film. The way the film bought out the character of Ulrike Meinhof and thus the whole question of why someone would resort to terrorism was I felt both the best, and most frustrating part of the film. The best because it made me simply think about the mindset and just generally the sort of person who gets involved in a terrorist organization, but also the most frustrating because it was not fully developed and thus I was left feeling that I didn't totally understand the fundamental question of why? But then again, the movie only had a limited time to show the major events of the RAF in the 1970s, which it did very well, but ultimately was not able to bring the main protaganists characters out fully.

The second feature of my week was the last in the series of Generation Kill. For anyone who hasn't seen this, and that is probably the vast majority of people as it was shamelessly shown only on Fx, yet the series showed how truly amateur British television is by comparison. Over the course of 7 episodes, the series followed the men of Bravo Company, in the U.S Marines 1st Recon Battalion as they invaded Iraq in 2003. This was from start to finish, a simply brilliant series. And had one of the most fascinatingly powerful endings which has to be seen in the context of the whole series to be fully understood. It was not an exceptional ending, but the way it was done, I just found it an immensely powerful and thought-provoking reflection on a group of young men taking part in the most controversial and complex military conflicts of recent times.