Reviews
The White Ribbon
November 13 2009
Michael Haneke
Starring Burghart Klaussner, Susanne Lothar, Rainer Bock
Related reviews and interviews
Winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes is a decidedly mixed blessing. For all the ones that go on to win other major awards and pierce the international mainstream – Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, Jane Campion’s The Piano – there are those that remain in arthouse purgatory, like the Dardenne brothers’ L’Enfant or Nanni Moretti’s The Son’s Room. The anti-religious sentiment of Michael Haneke’s latest film, which won the award earlier this year, may seal its fate in the latter category. Let us hope not, for The White Ribbon is the Austrian director’s most ambitious and most accessible film to date.
Haneke’s cruel streak, expressed so violently in both the original and his Hollywood remake of Funny Games, is tempered here in favour of a claustrophobic atmosphere of oppression. The year is 1913. In a rural German village still overseen by a feudal landlord, the small Protestant community is rocked by a series of unexplained events each more violent than the last. As the townspeople slowly turn in on themselves, a young schoolteacher begins to suspect that his pupils may not be as innocent as they seem.
If you’ve ever seen a Haneke film, you’ll know better than to expect a satisfying resolution to the various mysteries he sets up, but this film comes closer to it than any of his others. In the first lines of the film, the narrator solemnly intones that the events we are about to see “might clarify some things that happened in this country.” On a simplistic level we are seeing the seeds of Nazism being sewn, but that diminishes the scope of Haneke’s intentions. This film is about how all communities ruled by religious repression are doomed to self-destruct. The deeply conservative pastor (played with terrifying severity by Burghart Klaussner) is the closest this film has to a villain; a man whose disciplinarian zeal ends up corrupting more than it inspires.
Haneke has said that The White Ribbon is a film about the ‘roots of evil’, and it is appropriate that it most resembles a horror film. The painterly black and white cinematography and the pervasive feeling of menace makes this a kind of Village of the Damned for the cerebral set.
Which is not to say it’s an entirely dark film. There are moments of sweetness, particularly in the schoolteacher’s shy, bumbling courtship of the landlord’s nanny, that show Haneke is not simply a gloom merchant. But that streak of cruelty is not completely absent; a simple scene showing the doctor (Rainer Bock) jilting his mistress (Susanne Lothar) is a masterclass in explicit abuse all the more shocking for being delivered with emotion-free directness.
Stylistically and thematically, The White Ribbon shows a director in full control of his form. From the meticulous composition of his frames to the subtle sequencing of his scenes, Haneke is now at the height of his powers. This is a complete work of cinema, at once engaging and ingenious.
Anticipation:
Enjoyment:
In Retrospect:
"If you’ve ever seen a Haneke film, you’ll know better than to expect a satisfying resolution to the various mysteries he sets up, but this film comes closer to it than any of his others."
I'll say it comes closer! If this were any other Haneke film, the above review would be guilty of a spoiler (or at least a near spoiler) – but the truth is that in this film it is rather obvious from very early on what underlies the mysterious goings-on in the town (thanks to hints, even assertions, from the narrator as to who, broadly, is responible), so there is nothing really to be spoilt. The mystery here is entirely constructed by the villagers themselves in their refusal to confront (and conversely their readiness to deny) what is going on in their midst – and it is in that sense that the guilt is shown to spread beyond the actual perpetrators of the crime.
I liked The White Ribbon. I admired the rigour and stark beauty of its aesthetic (all those distancing black-and-white long shots), I thought the performances were excellent, and yet – there is little in it that has not been seen before, whether in previous Haneke films (where young people often take a terrible revenge upon the adult world that has engendered them, revisiting it with its own repressed sins), or in any period film dealing with the malice, repression and hypocrisy of the past (and there are many of these). While several Haneke films masterfully induce in the viewer a sense of nervous claustrophobia, to me The White Ribbon goes beyond being merely stifling to something more like stuffiness, even dullness. I've now seen it twice, and I think that is quite enough for a lifetime – whereas Hidden I'd happily watch any number of times without feeling, well, just a little bored. Or am I just being as small-minded as Haneke's provincial characters?
Written by Anton Bitel on November 13th, 2009 at 20:50
You're not the only person I've heard (read) saying that. More than any other Haneke film I've seen, this one is hermetic; so precise in its intonations and framing that it becomes almost a slave to the form. It's airless. I think because of that I can't buy it is an allegory of evil. Nothing is real enough to carry consequence. This isn't Germany, this is Haneke land – a place of very specific and clinical evil, but not an evil that can be transmuted elsewhere. Haneke is poisonous, I think, but not infectious.
Written by Matt Bochenski on November 16th, 2009 at 15:36
Tell you what, though – if anyone builds 'Haneke land' the theme park, I'll definitely be taking that ride…
Written by Anton Bitel on November 16th, 2009 at 15:42
There could be a lake with paddle-boat swans where unwary punters get trussed up and pushed overboard.
Written by Matt Bochenski on November 16th, 2009 at 16:50