Director's Commentary
»"A German Youth" tells the story of the RAF in pictures and at the same time as a story of pictures. In my research on the RAF, I looked through over a thousand hours of archive material. With my film I bring these images from the past into our present and reorganize them into a subjective montage. I am interested in what goes beyond the obvious message of the images and sounds. The contradictions and the special presence of the material – how it moves and disturbs me: the timbre of a voice, an excerpt from a student film full of hope and élan, the failure of a personal path in life, the coldness of a blood-stained reality or the silence of mourning.
By exclusively using material that the "protagonists" have created themselves or that shows them, I also circumvent their psychologisation, the attempt to explain their actions. For such analyses usually set a possible perspective as absolute. For example, there are various interpretations of why Ulrike Meinhof became an RAF activist: She had brain surgery, she was depressed, she was attracted to Andreas Baader, etc. All these interpretations can be right or wrong and yet they always remain incomplete and mask the fact that her choice of violence ultimately remains incomprehensible. She simply did it.
The fact that I also give the members of the RAF a voice through their comments, reports and films does not rewrite history, nor is it intended to excuse the crimes committed. My concern is rather to open the door to a more complete discussion about the nature of the deeds and our own humanity. In the "echoes" of the past, the audience encounters a piece of history that has had a significant impact on West Germany and which still raises essential questions today: How is it possible to avoid and deny violence? How is it still possible to believe in culture and art as a way to escape one-sidedness and radicalisation? Questions that are still ours.«
Jean-Gabriel Périot