Spellbinding

Rating: Null/10 (22 March 2019)

Many of the other reviewers have perhaps missed a larger point of what I think (IMHO) this masterpiece is about. They've attributed the pre-WWI straight-jacket, blinkered and regimented lives of the people in this village as explaining the rise of the Third Reich. Other reviewers have complained about the 'unsatisfactory' ending: that the unsettling events portrayed were not fully explained. The movie ends just before the onset of WWI. The writer's point is that evil cannot always be explained, but it always begets further evil (e.g. WWI - a horror in itself, and which in turn led to the subsequent horrors of the Third Reich). The many 'little' horrors committed in the village by unknown perpetrators are matched by other little horrors committed by fully known perpetrators. The ghostly quietness of this movie, the drabness (black and white frames only) of what should have been a gorgeous rural backdrop is very much in sync with the existential solitude, feeling of entrapment, and inevitability of something dreadful that lurks ... in all of us. More prosaically though, this movie contains all the ingredients key to any good story: the viewer wants to know what comes next; wants to get to the bottom of the mysteries; cares about the characters; the dialogue is spare and riveting; the acting, cinematography, casting and directing superb. Memorable, thought provoking, spellbinding. (If you only like fast paced action movies, or whodunits, then you'll hate this movie).