By Todd McCarthy
An X Filme Creative Pool (Germany)/Les Films du Losange (France)/Wega Film (Austria)/Lucky Red (Italy) presentation. (International sales: Les Films du Losange, Paris.) Produced by Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, Margaret Menegoz, Andrea Occhipinti. Executive producer, Michael Katz. Directed, written by Michael Haneke; screenplay consultant, Jean-Claude Carriere.
The Schoolteacher - Christian Friedel
Eva - Leonie Benesch
The Baron - Ulrich Tukur
Marie-Louise, the
Baroness - Ursina Lardi
The Pastor - Burghart Klaussner
Anna, the Pastor's Wife - Steffi Kuhnert
The Steward - Josef Bierbichler
Emma, the Steward's
Wife - Gariela Maria Schmeide
The Doctor - Rainer Bock
The Midwife - Susanne Lothar
Klara - Maria-Victoria Dragus
Martin - Leonard Proxauf
Erna - Janina Fautz
Karli - Eddy Grahl
Narrator - Ernst Jacobi
Perhaps closest to his two-part 1979 TV film "Lemmings" that scrutinizes the ills passed down from generation to generation, but similar as well to a number of his other pictures, including his 2004 international hit "Cache" (Hidden), in its refusal to clearly solve the deadly central mystery, this ironically titled film goes beyond its general analysis of humanity to implicitly suggest some tendencies in the German character and culture that could point to certain developments in the subsequent three decades.
"The White Ribbon" is structured around a string of misfortunes that befall citizens of Eichwald, an agricultural community where half the population works for the Baron (Ulrich Tukur) and where the stern Protestant pastor (Burghart Klaussner) wields a strong influence, especially on the children. In the opening scene, the local doctor (Rainer Bock) is severely injured when his horse stumbles over what is soon discovered to be a trip wire someone deliberately stretched between two trees.
Not long after, the wife of a farm worker dies from a fall through the Baron's faulty barn loft floor; blaming the Baron, the woman's hot-headed son slashes the boss's cabbage crop, and the Baron's son is found beaten and tied upside down in the barn.
Marbled in between such occurrences are slashing glimpses of village life, including the pastor's brutal caning of his children over a mild disturbance; a woman's frustration at a musical accompanist who can't keep up; and a little boy's questioning of his nanny about death, in the course of which he learns that his own mother, supposedly away on a long trip, is no longer living. The rare expression of genuine childhood innocence and good will is occasionally tolerated, but more often squashed, by the grown-ups, but even children's own true nature comes increasingly under a cloud, to the point where "The White Ribbon" feels like a thematic companion piece to "Lord of the Flies."
The only warm narrative thread is the endearingly bashful courtship between the pudding-faced young school teacher (Christian Friedel) and 17-year-old Eva (Leonie Benesch), who works as a nanny at the Baron's estate. The ever-so-gradual blossoming of their romance is a tickling delight, even though one suspects Haneke will throw a monkeywrench into it.
As the harvest season passes into winter and then toward what one eventually realizes will be the start of World War I in the summer of 1914, the village's misdeeds morph into genuine atrocities, resulting in mutual distrust among longtime neighbors and the arrival of outside police. There is enough potential guilt to be spread around among a number of possible culprits, but this remains a whodunit cloaked both in the mists of time and in the collective nature of the human beings under investigation, and hence, a mystery not of suspense but of suspicion.
The villagers here live a mostly isolated existence far more redolent of 19th century life than of the mechanized 20th century that will soon engulf them, and the film meticulously conveys both the physical realities of the times and of the moral strictures under which almost no family is a stranger to child abuse, malicious behavior, adultery and premature death. About the only leading character immune from such a stigma is the childless one, the schoolteacher who, in a welcoming older voice (Ernst Jacobi), also serves as the sorry tale's narrator.
Craft contributions are superb in every respect, notably production designer Christoph Kanter's simple, geographically coherent rendering of the village and Christian Berger's detail-filled monochromatic lensing. Only music is that briefly heard from natural sources within the film.
..................................................................................................
By Mike Goodridge
Dir: Michael Haneke. 2009. Germany-Austria-France-Italy. 145 minutes.
When he is on top form Michael Haneke’s artistry and unerring control of his material is hard to beat. And he is on top form in The White Ribbon, a meticulously constructed, precisely modulated tapestry of malice and intrigue in a rural village in pre-World War I northern Germany. It’s a rich, detailed work pregnant with the sinister undertones and evil deeds for which the film-maker’s work is legendary and won’t disappoint Haneke fans waiting for fresh material after his experimental US remake of Funny Games.
Sony Pictures Classics pre-bought the film on the eve of Cannes, already suggesting The White Ribbon’s potential as an event for arthouse distributors. Ostensibly, it’s not the easiest sell – it’s nearly two- and-a-half hours long, shot in black-and-white and features a plethora of vile characters – but the Haneke name, the scale of the piece and an uncharacteristically warm central character will boost its prospects, not to mention the fact that from the start the film is a whodunnit with all the mystery and taut tension that the genre entails.
The film works on several levels – as a story of hypocritical adults and their unbalanced children, a picture of patriarchal community life and a snapshot of how 20th century Germany was shaped.
It’s also Haneke working in unusually classical fashion. Aided by crisp, often startling images shot by Christian Berger, the film-maker weaves his web of storylines with a traditional voiceover, a linear narrative and fine period detail. At times, The White Ribbon is so rich it could be a mini-series, yet it is always a Haneke film, probing under the surface of appearances into the malevolence of the human soul.
Created and written by the director with script guidance from the great Jean-Claude Carriere, The White Ribbon takes place over two years from 1913-1914 in a staunchly Protestant, rural community in Northern Germany. Narrated by an old man (Jacobi) recalling his years as the village schoolteacher (when he is played by the appealing Friedel), the story begins with a mysterious accident in which the local doctor (Bock) falls off his horse and breaks his collarbone, apparently tripped by a wire planted at the gate to his house.
We are introduced to the town’s aristocratic landowner The Baron (Tukur) and his wife (Lardi), the self-righteous pastor (Klaussner, giving the film’s most memorable performance) and two of his long-suffering offspring Klara (Dragus) and Martin (Proxauf) whom he forces to wear white ribbons as a reminder of purity and innocence. Other characters include the doctor’s housekeeper and lover (Lothar) and the daughter whom he abuses (Roxane Duran), the steward of the baron’s estate (Josef Bierbichler) and a local farmer (Samarovski) whose wife dies soon after the doctor’s accident.
While the schoolteacher woos a 17-year-old nanny (Benesch) to be his future bride, further strange events continue to take place in the village. The son of the baron is found flogged, a barn is burned down, a mentally ill child is found brutally tortured. Each of the incidents implies that a punishment is being carried out, but neither police nor villagers can get to the bottom of the crimes.
Of course, this being Haneke, there is nothing as simple as a reveal in which the culprits are unveiled. Instead, he takes pleasure in the tensions along the way and the catastrophic repression behind every sentence uttered. The villagers of The White Ribbon are quite the most disturbed ensemble of characters to emerge from a film-maker’s mind in some years.
Cruelty and injustice are rampant in Haneke’s village, from the tenant farmers dependent on the baron’s goodwill to the menfolk’s treatment of children and women. Some audiences may flinch at the unpleasantness – which include a vicious verbal humiliation by the doctor of his lover, sadistic verbal putdowns and children being thrashed (depicted offscreen).
But all is not as straightforward as it seems. The possibility that the children themselves have become monsters bears chilling implications for the events which will take place in Germany over the following 30 years.
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