The White Ribbon: Film Review
The audience-tormenting exploits of Funny Games and psychological paranoia of Hidden are toned down in Michael Haneke’s latest offering, The White Ribbon.
While master of menace Haneke builds in the destructive overtones of his previous offerings, here he follows a path of subtle exposition.
The Austrian writer/director circumvents the genre trappings of Funny Games in favour of a more artfully minimalist exercise in anxiety.
The Village of the Damned…
The action takes place in a Protestant northern German village on the eve of the First World War. A series of strange incidents occur which revolve around a group of children.
Comparisons to Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal sprung to mind while watching Haneke’s meta-musing on life. As with Bergman’s magnus opus, The White Ribbon reflects upon death and the meaning of life through a prism of stark black-and-white deep-focus photography. Wolf Rilla’s Village of the Damned also seeps through the screen at times.
It’s easy to see why Haneke’s sombre drama claimed the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival last year. The White Ribbon is fantastically cinematographic, beautifully acted, thematically challenging and genuinely unnerving.
Be that as it may, once the movie’s 225 minute runtime had elapsed, I’d be lying if I said I was fully satisfied.
My main – and only problem – is this…
Haneke goes out of his way to heighten audience anticipation over the source of the mysterious events bearing down on the villagers.
There is a kind of Scooby-Doo whodunit element that quietly plays out in the background. To this extent the film occasionally dips its toe in the conventional waters of genre thriller.
These allusions to cinematic convention hint at a decisive ending, so the absence of narrative closure came somewhat as a disappointment. This, however, is admittedly a minor squabble and Haneke is famed for baiting his audience.
And don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with exigent endings or those that break the mainstream modus operandi.
The White Ribbon is probably an acquired taste so even though it’s recommended, let me leave you with this thought: as a piece of art the film is masterful; as entertainment, it’s unpredictable.
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Tommy
1:04 am, March 25, 2010
You deffo right that its an acquired taste cos even though I appreciated it, it wasn’t totally my cup of tea.
cheers!
Ferienhäuser Hamburg
12:45 am, December 23, 2010
Finden Sie günstige Ferienhäuser
Realty South
6:23 am, January 24, 2011
thanks very good. nice share this ooo man