The White Ribbon Reviews

I already saw this movie but, since it has such a strong reputation, I was quite eager to check it out again. Back then, it seemed that Michael Haneke was on top of his game, winning twice back-to-back the Golden Palm at the Cannes film festival. Unfortunately, even though I did like this movie, I didn’t really connect with it eventually. To start with, he is not the easiest director and he always challenges the traditional narrative conventions but it is something recurrent in his work. One of his trademark is to put his characters in some very stressful situation/environment and whereas a conventional movie would explain what’s going on, why all this is happening, Haneke doesn’t follow this path and you have to make up on your own what is exactly going on. I thought it worked amazingly well with ‘Caché’, ‘Funny Games’ or ‘Benny’s video’ but, here, I really had a hard time to get into the story. The first issue, I think, is that there were just too many characters. In the previous movies I mentioned before, Haneke was focusing on just one family (with one single child usually) so you could focus on those characters, on what they were going through. Here, there was a multitude of characters so it was rather difficult to keep track on who was who and who did what. I also had a hard time to invest myself in those characters since you didn’t spend much time with each of them and would constantly jump from one to another. Furthermore, I was not completely convinced by how the whole thing was written. I mean, pretty early on, they gave you the feeling that there was something fishy about those kids but then, the plot (if you could call it a plot) moved away from them, but then it came back to them, then moved away again and, then, at the end, it seemed there would be some kind of closure but, as usual, with Haneke, it was denied to the viewers. Apparently, I would later find out, the children in the film happened to be the generation of Germans who became Nazis, no less than that. Personally, I completely missed that while watching this flick and, to me, it felt like some kind of Arthouse version of ‘Children of the Corn’. Eventually, after rewatching the damned thing, I finally understood that the actions of these children were actually linked to the actions and behavior of the adults surrounding them. Indeed, they were imposed some very strict education through their whole youth while the adults around them were vain, selfish, dishonest, adulterous and even incestuous. Eventually, it is hardly surprising that the doctor was their first victim since he was probably the worst of the bunch. It didn’t excuse what they were doing but, at least, it was not completely random anymore. Still, even though it didn’t really blow me away, I still enjoyed this movie though. Indeed, it is probably the most beautiful movie made by Haneke so far with some gorgeous black and white photography. I also enjoyed the love story which was one of the most touching and genuine romances I have seen lately. Furthermore, even though I didn’t really connect with the whole thing, there was still definitely something mesmerizing about this village. Anyway, to conclude, even though it didn’t turn out to be the masterpiece I was hoping for, it was still an interesting flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Michael Haneke’ s work.

Una foto incredibile di un piccolo paese tedesco che si avvia alla guerra. Incredibile l'uso del bianco/NERO.

''After so many years, a lot of it has become obscure, and many questions remain unanswered. But I feel I must talk about the strange events that occurred in our village. They could perhaps clarify certain things that happened to this Country. It all began, I think, with the Doctor's riding accident...''

Strange events happen in a small village in the north of Germany during the years just before World War I, which seem to be ritual punishment. The abused and suppressed children of the villagers seem to be at the heart of this mystery.

Christian Friedel: The School Teacher

The White Ribbon(German: Das weiße Band, Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte) is a 2009 black and white drama written and directed by Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke. The story darkly depicts society and family in a northern German village just before World War I. According to Haneke, the film is about "the origin of every type of terrorism, be it of political or religious nature."



Set in a German village manifested by acts of malice and violence in the months leading up to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Michael Haneke's latest offering The White Ribbon is a creation defined by images dually effecting and deeply insightful.
A gentle, sinless romance that builds at the center of The White Ribbon between a school teacher and a young woman named Eva (Leonie Benesch) balances the other circumstances which arise. It is from a later time and with the pangs of wisdom and helplessness that the nameless school teacher (Christian Friedel) narrates the happenings in his home village preceding the Great War.
The choice to make the film in black and white was based partly on the resemblance to photographs of the era, but also to create a distancing effect.
All scenes were originally shot in colour and then altered to black and white. Christian Berger, Haneke's usual director of photography, shot the film on Super 35 using a Moviecam Compact. Before filming started, Berger studied the black and white films Ingmar Bergman made with Sven Nykvist as cinematographer. Haneke wanted the environments to be very dark, so many indoor scenes used only practical light sources such as oil lamps and candles. In some of the darkest scenes, where the crew had been forced to add artificial lighting, extra shadows could be removed in the digital post-production which allowed for extensive retouching.
In Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, a German paper, Julia Evers called the film "an oppressive and impressive moral painting, in which neither the audience nor the people in the village find an escape and a valve from the web of authority, hierarchy and violence. Everything in The White Ribbon is true. And that is why it is so difficult to bear." Markus Keuschnigg of Die Presse praised the sober cinematography along with the pacing of the narrative. Keuschnigg opposed any claims about the director being cold and cynical, instead hailing him as uncompromising and sincerely humanistic.
Die Welt's Peter Zander compared The White Ribbon to Haneke's previous films Benny's Video and Funny Games, both centering around the theme of violence. Zander concluded that while the violence in the previous films had seemed distant and constructed, The White Ribbon demonstrates how it is a part of our reality. Zander also applauded the "perfectly cast children", whom he held as the real stars of this film.
"Mighty, monolithic and fearsome it stands in the cinema landscape. A horror drama, free from horror images", Christian Buß wrote in Der Spiegel, and expressed delight in how the film deviates from the conventions of contemporary German cinema: "Director Michael Haneke forces us to learn how to see again". Buß suggested references in the name of the fictitious village, Eichwald, to the Nazi Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann and the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Eichwald is however a common German place name, meaning the "Oak Forest", thus it is open to interpretation to its meaning, if any.

''Will you set it free once it's healed?''

Reactions and effectual repercussions: The village pastor punishes his children and makes his two eldest wear the titular woven band. It is a symbol of innocence and throughout his film captures devastating cultural and historical implications; Haneke's more fervent fascination is with how innocence and sin are both entwined regarding childhood. The children all possess the basic indicators of innocence but their demeanours akin to their faces, say otherwise. What they are taught -- a strict reading of God's laws -- and what they see are dissimilar and their allegiances become first-and-foremost to God. Their imposing of His wrath takes the form of punishing not only their elders but of a rich boy and a young handicapped child.
These children would grow up and support -- if not birth -- the National Socialist movement but Haneke is careful not to corner his film or let it stand as pure symbolism. The White Ribbon is richly drawn and complexly layered in crisp and perfectly calibrated black-and-white landscapes which emphasizes shadowy house interiors and beautiful, light-drenched exteriors; A picture of immense negativity upon a foundation on a doomed community rather than a smattering of barking ideologies. The school teacher's courtship and a poor, widowed farmer's family may not be implicit in the children's surreptitious punishments but they are likewise troubled and affected by the bedlam.
Only in the film's last quarter does someone start suspecting that the children are those responsible but the viewer is meant to feel like the moral crimes perpetrated by the adults are more substantial than the atrocities committed by the children throughout. Haneke, in fact, is elliptical when it comes to acts of degrading innocence: The attacks on two boys, the murder of a cherished pet, a child's molestation and the caning of two siblings are all conveyed through their early stirrings and their ultimate effects, with interpretation and discussion adding symbolic referendum. The violence, bred from idealized indoctrination, exudes an eerie, poignant resonance retaining déjà vu and indeed, the film's pristine aesthetic, bleak with a thematic palate which help shape The White Ribbon.

The White Ribbon is simply this: Mysterious things happen. The setting of the fictitious Protestant village of Eichwald, Germany between July 1913 and August 1914, captures the feel, history and time more than any other film preceding it. It is not merely confined to being a master work of cinematography but one where storytelling and history merge together.

''There was a feeling of expectation and departure in the air. Everything was about to change.''

Palma D’or em 2009, “A Fita Branca” apresenta uma série de obscuros eventos que tomam lugar em uma vila rural, e majoritariamente protestante, alemã, às vésperas da primeira guerra mundial; e segundo uma narração inicial, estes acontecimentos podem esclarecer “algumas coisas que ocorreram neste país”.

Um fio de aço fora amarrado entre duas árvores trespassando o caminho do médico que cavalgava em direção a sua residência, deixando-o gravemente ferido e seus filhos ficaram sob os cuidados da vizinha, com quem o viúvo nutre uma discreta porém sórdida relação. A perversidade cresce nos deliberados incidentes seguintes enquanto o narrador revela o intrincado cotidiano local, enraizado em repreensão sob forma de severas e indefectíveis formalidades, em grande parte, executadas metodicamente pelo pastor; a emblemática fita branca, é uma das manobra de mortificação empregadas por ele para que seus filhos retomem a inocência, mais um símbolo de culpa e repressão que culmina numa espiral onde estas e outras criança são simultaneamente doestadores e vítimas.

O paralelo com “A Cidade dos Amaldiçoados” (1995) pode surgir a mente, mas diferente de John Carpenter, Michael Haneke segue apontando o mal para a condição humana, assim, dispõe imparcialmente os vestígios e revela gradualmente que o terror forasteiro(vindo de fora) é ilusório.

“The White Ribbon, A German Children’s Story” (2009) está definitivamente mais próximo da máxima de Lars Von Trier na manutenção de uma estrutura comunitária, e na hipocrisia e crueldade de suas implicações, em “Dogville”(2003); Haneke posiciona sua lente observando friamente o microcosmo desta aldeia com enviesamento amostral de uma Alemanha pré I Guerra.

De maneira crua, cerebral e monocromática, ressonante com a aspereza de seu roteiro, o diretor austríaco entrega a violência de forma ainda mais meditativa, quase filosófica, refletindo os brutais atentados como rebelião ao poder repressor. Quem serão esses filhos constantemente admoestados, abusados e silenciados em alguns anos? Esta é uma conexão para ilustrar um ambiente sufocadoramente reprimido em que os ideais nazistas posteriormente infiltraram-se.