Film: The White Ribbon
Release date: 15th March 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 144 mins
Director: Michael Haneke
Starring: Christian Friedel, Leonie Benesh, Burkhart Klaussner, Ulrich Tukur, Steffi Kühnert
Genre: Drama/Mystery
Studio: Artificial Eye
Format: DVD
Country: Germany/Austria/France/Italy
Michael Haneke is a master of suspense - a director whose focus has lay solely on his power over his character and his audience. His past successes, of which there are many, have all probed a little deeper than the horror at their surface, and his name has been made not just by his signature direction but by his ambition also. The award-winning, Oscar-nominated White Ribbon showcases another string to his bow.
The film follows the lives of the inhabitants of Eichwald, a rural village in pre-First World War Germany. The villagers are mainly employed as farmers by the baron who is the lord of the manor. The baron runs the village with a tight hand, and the villagers depend on his favour and a good harvest.
The pastor is also a figurehead in a very protestant village; he preaches the strict word of God to the villagers, and most strongly to his young children, who wear white ribbons to symbolise their innocence and purity.
The villagers depend upon their doctor, too; he is a single man whose wife passed away during the birth of his young son. The doctor treats the villagers with care by day, but by night, he takes advantage of his young daughter and housekeeper who is the local midwife.
In the months running up to Ferdinand’s murder and the declaration of the First World War, a series of mysterious and vengeful events begin to take place in the village. The doctor is knocked of his horse by a wire placed between two trees and he is hospitalised; the farmer’s wife falls to her death through the roof of their barn; and then on the day of the town’s harvest festival, the baron’s crop is destroyed. The events cause a stir in the village as the baron urges the villagers to find the culprit of the crimes, and as fear spreads, the baron’s young son is captured and tortured before being found hung upside down in the woods.
Word of mouth and suspicions are spreading around the village as the baron’s wife takes her young family away from the dangers of their home. Events continue to worsen as more acts of sabotage, including the burning of a barn, disrupt the peace. The village’s teacher, who primarily had been more concerned with his growing romance with the young Eva, begins to notice a pattern to the acts that could inclinate the very children he teaches…
The White Ribbon is Haneke’s most accomplished work. He instils a tension that is felt even stronger than his past thrillers Funny Games and Hidden - the anxiety is as affecting as it is subtle. He presents the scrupulous details of the narrative without a soundtrack or any backing music, and this creates an eerie silence around the otherwise disturbing events of the film, and installs an atmosphere of uncertainty that has viewers on tenter hooks even when watching the most trivial of conversations.
Haneke’s direction relies on non-glorious effect as he captures the events through a still and often lingering camera. Shots of closed doors only alert the viewer to the horror of the sounds inside, and we are treated to a consistently off centre camera, which really brings a higher appreciation of the scene in front of it. As the farmer sits at his wife’s death bed, he is hidden by a cupboard - we only see the ripples of his back as he weeps, and as the camera loiters, we are treated to a portrayal of pain that could not have been simulated with a standard close-up.
Cinematographer Christian Belger is no stranger to Haneke’s films, having previously worked with the auteur on both The Piano Teacher and Hidden. He received an Oscar nomination for his work here, which is more than justified as he provides an authenticity to the film’s events. It’s hard to imagine the film in colour – filming in black-and-whitet echoes the peculiarity of the village with cutting realism.
Haneke’s portrayal of the village is very well realised as he shows us a hierarchy, religious infatuation and family life that has rarely been touched upon, particularly to non-Germans/Austrians. The men rule the roost over the women and children with a strictness that is hard to comprehend, and sometimes disturbing to watch. The pastor ties his young son to his bed at night to prevent him “succumbing to the urges of his young body,” and a scene in which the doctor ends his affair with the midwife is shocking in its cruelty and lack of restraint. The attack is verbal but wounds deeper than any physical act as he tells her of his disgust at her bad breath and aging body.
These characters and their lifestyles are for Haneke the perfect roots for the evil of his film to grow. Perhaps none are more affected than the children, whose faces, full of desperation, live on in your memory long after the film’s end. Haneke’s ambition to show this growing evil is applaudable, and the film’s meanings are as susceptible and ambiguous as its conclusion. This may be somewhat frustrating to audiences who may feel, after serving an undoubtedly overlong running time, they are deserving of more closure.
That said, a return to moral balance or a simple resolution to the story would hardly be fitting of the film, or of Haneke. Instead, it seems better to consider the reasons why the mysterious events took place as opposed to the mystery man or woman responsible. As the baron’s wife notes the village is a place of “malice, envy, apathy and brutality,” and these seem to be results in the lifestyle of the villagers.
We consider this also in the light of the school teacher, a man who is portrayed ultimately as good. He does not concern himself with the envy of the other villagers and ultimately looks to serve others. His good nature is shown in particular with his pursuit of Eva to whom he is ever respectful - he contrasts the other villagers not just with the way his story ends but his actions leading up to it.
Eichwald is one of cinema’s most haunting locales, and the events there carried out between July 1913 and August 1914 (in Haneke’s world at least) are some of the most thought provoking and chilling cinematics of the director’s illustrious career. The talent on display from both cast and crew make this film not just a must see but Haneke’s greatest vision to date. LW
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