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 has become renowned over the years for making confrontational, provocative and often controversial films. From the cold-blooded violence of a film like Funny Games to the explicit sexual scenes of The Piano Teacher. In Hidden he proved himself not only adept at tapping into an individual characters psyche but also a national one, on that occassion looking at France’s colonial guilt over Algeria. While very different on the surface, The White Ribbon again taps into a national psyche, but this time the focus is on Germany.
The film itself takes place over a year, from July 1913 to the outbreak of the First World War, in a small village in Germany’s Protestant north. It is a quiet village in which little takes place until they are disturbed by a series of unfortunate events, beginning with a horse tripping over a wire and throwing off its rider, the local doctor.
Soon after this, a field (of cabbages) is scythed down; the local baron’s son disappears, only to be discovered with his feet and hands bound together, and his buttocks lashed with a whip; a barn burns down; a farmer hangs himself; and the handicapped child of the village midwife is kidnapped and discovered tied to a tree, severely beaten, and with a message on his chest that suggests that all these occurrences are divine punishments.
While we are led to believe these are random and unconnected occurrences, the new school teacher (Christian Friedel) soon suspects that it maybe the children of the village that are somehow behind these seemingly unconnected events. The implication made to the audience that these blonde, blue eyed children are the same generation that will bring about the rise of Nazism, and ultimately lead to World War II…
This may all seem rather heavy, and a tad on the pretentious side, but is certainly not as dry or elitist as you may imagine. This is not to say that it is a particularly easy watch either - it is a picture filled with a creeping sense of unease and a claustrophobic atmosphere, which Haneke has always been very good at it. It also follows Haneke’s thematic interest in ‘the root of evil’, which can be seen right throughout his catalogue of works.
It is not so much what is happening that unsettles, but the foreboding and what you don’t see. Also, easy conclusions or resolutions are not present - Haneke rarely ties anything up for the audience - the opening narration tells us the story will ‘clarify’ some of the events, but by the end, you may feel there has been more obfuscation.
This lack of resolution and the general air of mystery are elements most frequently cited by Haneke’s detractors - that and the lecturing tone of some of his films, with Funny Games, which was very accusatory towards the audience, probably being the guiltiest offender. This is the most humane entry in his filmography to date.
The most notable example of this is the growing relationship between the school teacher (Christian Friedel) and Eva (Leonie Benesh), which is both touching and surprisingly innocent - not at all things that Haneke is normally associated with. Both Friedel and Benesh put in very good, understated performances.
The rest of the cast are indeed equally impressive, with Burghart Klaussner giving an imposing performance as the stern pastor who puts white ribbons on his eldest children, Martin (Leonard Proxauf) and Klara (Maria-Victoria Dragus), at the beginning of the events to remind them of their purity.
Praise must also be given to the cinematographer Christian Berger, whose somewhat languid and sober shooting suitably fits the pace and narrative - the choice to frame the film in black-and-white reflects the bleak mood and oppressive atmosphere that pervades, and was also used partly to resemble photographs of the era, especially those of August Sander.
There are, thanks to the village children giving off the appropriate air of sinister and menace, comparisons to be had with The Village Of The Damned, but the rather derisory comments that this is merely that film with art house frills is unfair and unfounded.
When a film is heaped with critical adulation and prizes - it won the 2009 Palme D’Or and was nominated for Best Foreign feature at the 2010 Oscar’s - it is easy to try and pick holes and rail against the critical wind. Here, though, Haneke has created yet another great film, after the misstep with his US remake of Funny Games, and once again cements his place as one of the best directors working within world cinema today.
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