The art of imitating life

By Chris Summers
BBC News

The London Film Festival is showing several movies which are based on real-life events. But how hard is it to make a film about an actual event without distorting the truth?

The claim "based on a true story" is often deployed in the film industry.

Uli Edel's film is scheduled for a UK release next month

Sometimes it is used to give a veneer of legitimacy to a slightly duff movie, which would otherwise go straight to DVD.

Often the line between reality and fiction blurs, as was the case with Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, Pearl Harbor and The Last Samurai.

Four films at this year's London Film Festival have tackled real life events in very different ways - and they have already started to receive responses ranging from critical acclaim to downright hostility.

One of them, The Baader Meinhof Complex, dispenses with the "based on..." and simply begins with: "A true story".

The film is based on the actions of the Red Army Faction, a left wing terrorist group which wreaked havoc in Germany in the early 1970s. It has spawned some negative reaction in its home country, although it has been put forward as Germany's official Oscar nomination.

The daughter of Ulrike Meinhof - one half of the eponymous gang - said the movie was tantamount to hero worship.

I find the film's willingness to wrongfully invade our privacy particularly perfidious Corinna Ponto

"The film portrays one murder after another without any sense of meaning, any explanation," said Bettina Roehl.

Corinna Ponto, whose banker father Juergen was shot dead by the gang in 1977, told the German newspaper Die Welt: "I find the film's willingness to wrongfully invade our privacy particularly perfidious."

But the film's producer, Bernd Eichinger, has rejected the criticism and said: "There are no heroes in this film, no-one the audience can identify with.

"There's also no plot in the strictest sense, no linear narrative. Instead it's solely the monstrosity of the events, which grabs the attention of the audience."

Film debut

Hunger strikes were part of the Baader Meinhof Gang's strategy, but the tactic was more famously used by IRA prisoners in the early 1980s.

Hunger, the film debut from Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen, is a vivid retelling of the story of Bobby Sands, the IRA prisoner who died in May 1981 after a 66-day hunger strike.

McQueen has managed to make a compassionate and sympathetic film, while remaining aloof and non-partisan.

He has left it to the viewer to decide whether Sands was a heroic martyr or a selfish fanatic - a decision which will undoubtedly be influenced by the viewer's own feelings on Northern Ireland.

McQueen grew up as a black boy in north London and there was no reason for him to support Irish republicanism.

Michael Fassbender (left) gives a mesmerising performance as Bobby Sands

But he said: "When I was a child growing up in 1981, aged about 11 or 12, there were three things that influenced me: the Brixton riots, Tottenham winning the FA Cup - which was fantastic - and Bobby Sands.

"His image appeared on the TV screen virtually every night with a number underneath it and it stayed with me...that passion."

Hunger is a beautifully shot and highly artistic work, very different from the adrenaline rush of The Baader Meinhof Complex.

But the film, which has been funded by Channel 4, has infuriated many in Northern Ireland.

'Hagiography'

Democratic Unionist Party MP Gregory Campbell said: "Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers were criminals, not idealistic young revolutionaries. Senior IRA criminals are not deserving of the hagiography that Channel 4 seems to be dispensing."

I am sorry I have hurt your sensibilities. My only desire is to put an end to this suffering. I am not a politician, I am an artist Jaime Rosales Director

McQueen recently said he originally planned to make the film entirely silent, and that is exactly what Spanish director Jaime Rosales has done with Bullet In The Head (Tiro En La Cabeza).

The entire 84 minutes is filmed from the perspective of an observer who is just out of earshot, and none of the central characters' dialogue can be heard.

Bullet In The Head is based on the murder, in December last year, of two Spanish Civil Guard officers who were shot dead in southern France by a gang of Basque separatist terrorists.

The subject matter was so raw - the killings happened only 10 months ago - it is perhaps not surprising there were jeers when the film was shown recently at Spain's San Sebastian Film Festival.

Afterwards Rosales said: "I am sorry I have hurt your sensibilities. My only desire is to put an end to this suffering. I am not a politician, I am an artist. I cannot yield to emotional pressure. I am merely obsessed with finding a solution [to the Basque conflict]."

Tom Hardy delivers an unnerving performance as the laconic fantasist who has spent 34 years of his life behind bars James Christopher The Times

Another film to feature a real life subject is Bronson, which is based on the life of a man often dubbed "Britain's most dangerous prisoner".

Method actor Tom Hardy, who plays Bronson, visited him and his mother as part of his research and even copied his regime of 2,500 press-ups a day in order to portray the burly inmate.

Michael Peterson, who later changed his name in homage to the tough guy actor Charles Bronson, has spent 34 years in jail - 22 of them in solitary confinement - and is currently incarcerated in Wakefield prison.

The Times' chief film critic, James Christopher, said of the film: "It is a compelling portrait of the damaged man beneath the tabloid myth. Tom Hardy delivers an unnerving performance as the laconic fantasist who has spent 34 years of his life behind bars."

Each of the films, though controversial, are well worth seeing, even if they do inevitably and unfortunately intrude into some people's personal grief.

Hunger is released in the UK on 31 October. The Baader Meinhof Complex is due out on 14 November.