Children of the fright
The schoolteacher (Christian Friedel) finds solace in shy Eva (Leonie Benesch).
(Sony Pictures Classics)
The White Ribbon
Running time: 144 minutes
MPAA rating: R (profanity, some disturbing content involving violence and sexuality)
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An epic shrouded in black-and-white photography and mystery, "The White Ribbon" chronicles a pre-World War I German village unraveling at the seams.
As imminent unease and danger hang heavy over the small village in North Germany, the stark, stoic influence of Ingmar Bergman, the late Swedish filmmaking master, hovers as well.
"The White Ribbon," in German, Italian, Polish and Latin with subtitles, is, unofficially at least, writer-director Michael Haneke's homage to the 1960 horror-mystery "Village of the Damned."
The children here don't have eyes that glow, as the little demons' eyes did in "Village of the Damned" (and John Carpenter's remake). These eyes do, however, provide a window to the tormented soul, or perhaps to a vapid place where the soul should be.
This is also not the kind of film that fills in all the blanks for the audience. The children of the village seem oddly detached as a series of calamities occur. Someone ties a trip wire in the path of the village doctor, who's on horseback. The doctor is horribly injured. Also, a farmer's wife suffers a grisly death.
And so it goes, with a backdrop of a fire-and-damnation preacher (Burghart Klaussner) who ties his son to the bed at night in a desperate attempt to fend off oncoming puberty.
The schoolteacher (Christian Friedel), who fights his own ongoing battle with the increasingly unruly students, is about as close to normalcy as Haneke allows. After all, Haneke is the filmmaker who made the shocking home invasion horror-thriller "Funny Games" twice; in his native German in 1997, then in English and set in the U.S. in 2007.
Winner of the Palme d'Or (best film) at last year's Cannes Film Festival, "The White Ribbon" is also a Best Foreign Film nominee in the upcoming Academy Awards race.
While Haneke insists that a logical explanation for every bizarre act exists within the film if audience members use their imaginations, casual movie-goers may emerge back out into the theater lobby shaking their heads.
Haneke is extremely adept at setting a mood, however. Thanks to his eerie, effective use of black-and-white photography, the blank expressions on the children and many of the adults combine with ominous shadows to blur perception.
Unlike in "Funny Games," where most of the violence erupted in plain sight, however, the camera usually arrives at the scene of baffling crimes after the fact.
Just what those facts are depends to some extent on the eyes of the beholder.
As imminent unease and danger hang heavy over the small village in North Germany, the stark, stoic influence of Ingmar Bergman, the late Swedish filmmaking master, hovers as well.
"The White Ribbon," in German, Italian, Polish and Latin with subtitles, is, unofficially at least, writer-director Michael Haneke's homage to the 1960 horror-mystery "Village of the Damned."
The children here don't have eyes that glow, as the little demons' eyes did in "Village of the Damned" (and John Carpenter's remake). These eyes do, however, provide a window to the tormented soul, or perhaps to a vapid place where the soul should be.
This is also not the kind of film that fills in all the blanks for the audience. The children of the village seem oddly detached as a series of calamities occur. Someone ties a trip wire in the path of the village doctor, who's on horseback. The doctor is horribly injured. Also, a farmer's wife suffers a grisly death.
And so it goes, with a backdrop of a fire-and-damnation preacher (Burghart Klaussner) who ties his son to the bed at night in a desperate attempt to fend off oncoming puberty.
The schoolteacher (Christian Friedel), who fights his own ongoing battle with the increasingly unruly students, is about as close to normalcy as Haneke allows. After all, Haneke is the filmmaker who made the shocking home invasion horror-thriller "Funny Games" twice; in his native German in 1997, then in English and set in the U.S. in 2007.
Winner of the Palme d'Or (best film) at last year's Cannes Film Festival, "The White Ribbon" is also a Best Foreign Film nominee in the upcoming Academy Awards race.
While Haneke insists that a logical explanation for every bizarre act exists within the film if audience members use their imaginations, casual movie-goers may emerge back out into the theater lobby shaking their heads.
Haneke is extremely adept at setting a mood, however. Thanks to his eerie, effective use of black-and-white photography, the blank expressions on the children and many of the adults combine with ominous shadows to blur perception.
Unlike in "Funny Games," where most of the violence erupted in plain sight, however, the camera usually arrives at the scene of baffling crimes after the fact.
Just what those facts are depends to some extent on the eyes of the beholder.
