A Parable warning against moral absolutism ***Spoiler Alert***

Rating: Null/10 (30 March 2010)

White Ribbon is an achingly beautiful parable that demonstrates how moral absolutism - expressed as strict, conservative religion and enforced with physical punishment, fear and shame - leads not to moral perfection but increasing violence, fear, chaos, and intolerance. Yes, obviously, at this specific time in Germany, Fascism and Nazism grew out of such an environment. White Ribbon's deep power is not only as a window to the past, but as a warning for today to any community. The religious-righteousness and fear-mongering, as well as threats of domestic terrorist violence, in the US in 2010 suffer from a similar desire for a kind of order that cannot bring the order and perfection envisioned, only a form of control that eventually strangles humanity.
SPOILER ALERT: To comment on an earlier thread, people in White Ribbon disappeared sometimes because something bad happened to them, just like Nazi Germany, but sometimes they disappeared because they chose to get out before anything bad happened to them, and because only something bad would happen to them if they didn't disappear. Hopefully that's what happened to the woman on the bike, the Midwife - that she disappeared to save herself after her son had been murdered.