Review : "The White Ribbon" (2009) - movie by Michael Haneke

It is kind of dangerous to have too much previous critique of a movie in the back of your mind when entering into a viewing, but in this case, it was hard not to have at least heard of the Cannes Palms and the critical superlatives practically across the board. So it was with considerable expectations, that I sat through "The White Ribbon". I´ll admit it up front... Haneke is one of my absolute favorite directors. Few can get underneath the skin of a character or stretch the performance of an actor to stratospheric levels, when needed, like he can. He has a certain, sensitive and deadly serious touch, that no one else can quite match.

We follow the recollections of a school teacher´s experiences In the pivotal year of 1913, in a small German town. A string of incidents occur, that cannot easily be explained. At the same time we are presented with the extremely authoritarian culture, primarily kept up by a omnipresent patriarchy. Specifically the priest is raising (or rather assaulting) his children harshly to make them conform with the rules of the culture and its superstitions.

The teacher is himself a pacifist and clearly distinguishes himself by his, on one side being a part of culture, yet an individual who trusts his personal sense of morality and virtue. As he approaches one of the young women of the town, she is clearly very insecure and has very much a air of having been subdued by indoctrinated fear of socializing with men. This may certainly not be a bad thing in itself, but the lack of self knowledge as a result of cultural brainwashing is clearly not a step in the right direction for individuality and the ability to judge other peoples actions for yourself, within a philosophical framework.

It is clear that the director (storyteller) wants us to think about connections between how children are treated and thus how they will end up interacting with adult culture, religion and politics. It is obvious that the next year brought the start of the first world war and that could only come about from a German people more or less brainwashed into submission as children and bringing that on into adulthood, expressed through a deep anger and hate toward parents and culture, but projected towards the evil "outsiders", who must be punished and defeated.

There are several very well acted scenes, not least by the young kids and young adults. The combination of female passive aggressiveness and male sadism is also pretty well portrayed by several of the actors, who are genuinely disgusting. The cinematography is nothing short of perfection. The black and white colors are well chosen in my opinion, since that always turns your focus towards concepts, meanings and personalities. And it goes well with the commonness of black and white photographs and postcards of the era.

I just think that Haneke tries to mouth more than he can eat in this case. The plot leaves too much unanswered while the explanations are wholly based on the viewers knowledge of later history of Germany not covered in the story or the plot itself. in my opinion these aspects are too far removed from each other to have that deep and disturbing effect I suppose Haneke is looking to create.

At the same time it seems there are too many sub stories to keep track of to get a natural flow and developing story overall. The parts themselves do not really make that much of a coherent sum, but feel fragmented. It annoys me that I cannot dwell long enough on aspects that needs dwelling. Haneke needs to steer the actors and all the attempts at interweaving the separate parts so that in the end we do reach the ambitious conclusion he wants us to reach.

It is one of those movies I so much want to like and think of as another Haneke masterpiece, but it does not grab me the same way as "Cache" or "The Piano Teacher", even if the deeper story is similarly well hidden. "The white ribbon" just grabs too much and is too remote from the deep story to work well. Everything else though, has the trademark of a master director. The foreboding air is present in almost every scene and the composition of the shots are as picturesque as you can possibly want.

7/10