The White Ribbon Details

Pleasantly shocking.

Perfectly shot in glossy B&W. The rhythm seems slows but the pain grows and is excruciating the more the story evolves.

You can see violence, repressive education, obsessed religious credence and, fundamentally, a very poor education to be the perfect primordial ingredients of what is to become the future of Germany. You see those and and then you realize that Nazism is the only possible outcome.

Haneke is as usual superb 360 degrees. The unsaid and the unseen is even more shocking to be imagined than if he had it shown to the viewer.

Superb

[Highly rated reviewer]

deeply impressive

As with most of Haneke's work, attempting to figure out what it's all about can lead you up many fascinating, but ultimately blind alley-ways. The critical response to The White Ribbon has been a general discomfort with the suggested premise; that the rise of fascism in early 20th century Germany can be linked to the mistreatment of a generation of children. Surely a far too simplistic conclusion for this complex and rich work from a revered stalwart of the avant garde? And it's true - the film is so sophisticated, absorbing, beautiful and haunting, one doesn't like to believe that in the end its message boils down to 'what the world needs now is love-love-love' - but this conclusion is hard to dismiss.

But interpretation aside, The White Ribbon as pure experiential cinema is superb. As a viewer you feel like you're fulfilling that fantasy of being a ghost or an invisible man, able to wander around town and walk through walls, observing domestic scenes at random. The atmosphere is intimate, secretive, and never less than intense. The huge ensemble cast, from ages five to seventy-five, is simply a marvel. This is acting of the highest order, every moment steeped in an austere authenticity. The overall effect is mesmerising, often troubling, and deeply impressive.

Haneke's target here appears to be the parents, dominated by a group of unhappy, unkind, authoritarian fathers. It's interesting to consider this in relation to Haneke's own tendancy to authoritarianism; the feeling you get that there's an element of sermonizing in his work - one which he is keen to down-play, and so shrouding his films in mystery and enigma.

It struck me while watching The White Ribbon that the children of the village - children who we know will one day lend their support to National Socialism - are considered by the adults as either angels or devils; either beyond reproach or to be damned. It is often painful to watch them suffocating within the vacuum created between these two illusory extremes.

And what of the current intensity in our attitude to children and teenagers - is this Haneke's sermon? Is this a cautionary tale?