simply put - the most boring and pointless film of the year

Rating: 1/10 (30 December 2009)

'The White Ribbon' deals with Michael Haneke's household issues, loss of childhood innocence (for which the title is indeed a cipher), and unexplainable violence. The latter subject makes for much of the appeal of his earlier works like 'Benny's Video', which feature a rather uneventful plot turned upside down by a chain of unexplained and therefore intriguing events. 'The White Ribbon' follows this formula so closely that one may be excused of thinking of this film as some sort of remake in a different historical setting.
The difference is that this time, the story leads absolutely nowhere, This again is some sort of fixture in Haneke's oeuvre, not finishing the story and just ending the movie like that. But while this worked quite well in 'Caché' because it left the viewer with a sentiment of foreboding, this time it's plainly annoying, probably just because of the fact that Haneke has done this so many times before.
As for the acting, it is worthwhile to imagine how the intended performance of Ulrich Mühe (the Stasi official in 'The Life of Others') would have changed this film. Given his vocal intensity and talent to express a lot with little gestures, 'The White Ribbon' may have been a less drab, unexciting experience, but the script leaves little room for the cast to add something interesting to it.
Still, 'The White Ribbon' won the Palme d'Or in Cannes this year plus the European Film Awards and the Golden Globe, which illustrates how prizes are won these days: a household name, an established routine, a carefully orchestrated press campaign alluding to the symbolic nature of the story, black and white for a notion of art, and nobody dares to say the film is dull. Yet that's what 'The White Ribbon' is - boring. The longest two and a half hours of your life expect you.
A tip on the side: The Jury Prize in Cannes this year went to Jacques Audiard's 'A Prophet', which is a good juxtaposition to this film: it also follows a formula, but with much more zest and brilliant acting.