The White Ribbon (2009)

The film is a bit weaker than Haneke's other films. But not bad. But he does not achieve exactly what he wants to do. How did Nazism come from? A town explains this. Religion stays on everything, education is inadequate, science is used for devious purposes. But there is no answer to the main problem. why people are nazi? Is it human nature?

A film that raises a mystery is supposed to resolve it. This rubbish fails to do.There are a series of violent incident. Why? We never learn.In as far as there is an explanation, at least two persons are acting quite independently, in a village that has previously been peaceful.It is supposed to foreshadow Nazism. Which is absurd: the war produced fascism or similar movements in all countries that took part in it. Fascism was invented in Italy, and before Hitler came to power there were similar movements in all Eastern Europe apart from Czechoslovakia. And in the USA and Britain, similar movements maybe failed because the New Deal and National Government did similar things without breaking with conventional politics.It is also slow and dull, or at least I found it so.

Directed by Michael Haneke (Funny Games (both versions), Hidden (Caché), Amour), this German/Italian/Polish film was listed in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, it was rated well by critics, and I was hoping it would be worthy of recommendations. Basically in 1913, fifteen years before the breakout of the First World War, in the small Protestant village of Eichwald, Germany, a series of mysterious and unfortunate incidents are taking place. These occurrences include rider is thrown from their horse after it tripped on a wire, rotted planks cause a woman to fall to her death, the son of The Baron (Ulrich Tukur) is hung upside down in a mill, parents of village children are slapping and bullying their own offspring, a man is being cruel to his long-suffering lover, another man sexually abuses his own daughter, and many people disappearing. The School Teacher (Christian Friedel), who is immature and inexperienced, and is courting a nanny of the Baron's household, is narrating the story as an Old Man (Ernst Jacobi) and investigating the cause and connection of these accidents and crimes. There are pubescent children in the village with guilty consciences, The Pastor (Burghart Klaußner), he tries to reassure them, and gets them to wear a white ribbon, as a sign of the innocence and purity, but these children may in fact be the cause and at the heart of these strange circumstances, and it can only end badly for many characters. Also starring Leonie Benesch as Eva, Ursina Lardi as Marie-Louise, The Baroness, Fion Mutert as Sigi, Michael Kranz as The Tutor, Steffi Kühnert as Anna, The Pastor's Wife and Maria-Victoria Dragus as Klara. With having to read subtitles as well I did get very confused with this film, I did see the strange things happening and characters getting suspicious and paranoid, but I'm not sure I can fully agree with critics giving the film four stars out of five, or it being in the 1001 Movies book, however, it is not a bad film, it was interesting in parts, so overall it's an alright period mystery drama. It was nominated the Oscars for Best Cinematography and Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, it was nominated the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language, and it won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Worth watching, in my opinion!

Michael Haneke spent more than ten years on this production, which explains why every little detail about this movie is right. From the first frame on this movie grips you with its bare-bones style and unbearable silence. There's no music, long stretches without dialogue, most scenes only use natural lighting so the screen often goes black, but none of that is needed to generate an intensely powerful suspense. This is mostly due to the excellent child actors, who put in very effective performances. You feel sorry for them, but at the same time they're very ominous. Haneke's message seems to be that suppression only leads to more suppression, a scary basic idea that makes for a very frightening film. Rightful winner of the Palm d'Or, and I'm pretty sure it only got snubbed for the Best Foreign Film Oscar because several judges later admitted to never even having seen the movie.