The White Ribbon

A perceptive parable from Austrian writer-director Michael Haneke, the Oscar-nominated The White Ribbon is set in a German village on the eve of World War I and told from the perspective of a town schoolteacher (Christian Friedel onscreen and Ernst Jacobi in voiceover), who—like most of the characters—is nameless. The story gets off to a malevolent start when a doctor (Rainer Bock) is seriously injured after his horse is tripped by a wire deliberately strung between two trees in front of his house. Despite a cursory police investigation, the culprit remains undetected, possibly hidden by a conspiracy of silence. Disturbing events continue: a farmer's wife is killed, the young son of a baron (Ulrich Tukur) is assaulted, and a retarded boy is brutally beaten. What accounts for these strange, seemingly unrelated crimes? The answer—as is often the case in Haneke's films—remains somewhat ambiguous, although many in the village are subject to exploitation, physical punishment, subservience, and repression, as misanthropic cruelty is wielded by several characters, including the doctor, who habitually insults his midwife (Susanne Lothar), and the arrogant Protestant pastor (Burghart Klaussner), who demands that his disobedient children wear a white ribbon symbolizing innocence and purity. The schoolteacher does court a young woman named Eva (Leonie Benesch), one of the more benign relationships in a community that the baron's wife (Ursina Lardi) contemptuously describes as being permeated by “apathy, malice, envy, and revenge.” Intense, enigmatic, and starkly photographed in black-and-white, this foreboding tale raises provocative issues about both rigid discipline and the abuse of power. Highly recommended. [Note: Although the DVD is extra-less, Blu-ray extras include a “making-of” featurette (39 min.), a “My Life” featurette on filmmaker Michael Haneke (50 min.), footage from the Cannes Film Festival premiere (19 min.), and an interview with Haneke (14 min.). Bottom line: a fine Blu-ray extras package for a powerful film.] (S. Granger)