The White Ribbon
Review
by Anthony Morris
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The White Ribbon
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In a small German village in 1913, a mysterious string of
accidents soon has the locals wondering if something more sinister is
afoot.
Unfortunately for them - and for anyone in the audience
who might have expected a concrete resolution to the mystery - this is
a Michael Haneke (Hidden, Funny Games)
film, and so the focus here is firmly on building up a sense of unease
without necessarily giving the audience what it wants in terms of a
resolution.
Somehow that only seems to make the film stronger,
as the rural community is shaken time and again by a series of attacks
that seem to come out of nowhere and have no real motive.
Even
when one attack can be explained - a disgruntled serf blames the local
lord for the accidental death of his mother and takes revenge on his
crops - there's always another that can't.
Then again, why do
the local children always seem to stick so closely together? What are
they up to while their elders are distracted by their own issues?
Again,
there are no simple answers here, but after a while a pattern forms in
the life of the village - one where the adults are mostly cruel and
hypocritical, the children brutalised or ignored.
It doesn't
take much to realise that the children of 1913 - here played to
perfection of a group of youths who seem both completely average and
totally menacing - would become the adults who embraced Hitler in 1933,
and while Haneke never spells anything out it's yet one more layer of
sinister meaning laid over this film's dark events.
Haneke
specialises in cold, remorseless films and he's outdone himself here,
putting together a film that is both a well-crafted recreation of rural
life in pre-war Germany and a chilling tale of nameless dread. 4 out
of 5
The White Ribbon
Australian release: 6th May,
2010
Official
Site: The White Ribbon
Cast: Christian Friedel, Ernst Jacobi, Leonie Benesch, Ulrich Tukur, Ursina Lardi
Director: Michael Haneke
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