Children of the Korn-Germany's cabbage patch kids

Rating: 8/10 (6 March 2010)

One of the nominees for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, this is an art film wonderfully shot by cinematographer Christeian Berger in monochrome cinematography where it is shot in color and then the color is drained away to black and white giving it a washed out, faded look with no sharp, clean contrasts of black and white. Writer/director Michael Haneke takes us back to the northern German village of Eichwald of 1913-1914 just before the first world war. This is a feudal-serfdom type agrarian village that has not yet seemed to have entered the 20th century and where most of the villagers work on the local baron's (Ulrich Tuckur) farms. Told in voice over years later as an old man (Ernst Jacobi) by the teacher of the local school (Christian Friedel) of the chain of strange events that eventually led to his departure from the village. A lot of things happen in this slow paced film. the doctor (Rainer Bock) is injured when his horse runs into a trip wire that someone has maliciously set. The next day, the wife of tenant farmer (Branko Samarovski) is killed in a workplace accident in one of the baron's barns. As it goes on the Baron's son is caned and tied to a tree by unknown assailants, a barn is burned, an infant gets when someone purposely leaves a window open in his room, a pet bird is killed, kids try to drown the baron's son and then steal his flute, a daughter is molested, the strict pastor (Burghart Klaussner) canes his children and ties his eldest son's (Leonard Proxauf) hands to his bed at night so he won't pleasure himself and forces his children to wear a white ribbon to symbolically represent purity when they are caught doing something he deems wrong , a girl has clairvoyant dreams, a midwife (Susanne Lotner) has an affair with the doctor, the 31 year old teacher falls in love with 17 year old Eva Leonie Benesch), the tenant framer's son take revenge on his mother's death on the baron's cabbage patch, a mentally handicapped boy is tortured by other children, a man commits suicide out of disgrace, a girl is molested by her father. And on it goes. It's a multiple who dun it with no real answers and a lot for the audience to comprehend and think about. With Maria-Victoria Dragus as Klara, Fion Mutert as Sigmud, Joseph Bierbichler as the Steward,Steffi Kuhnert as the pastor's wife and Ursina Lardi as the Baroness. Excellet art direction, set decoration, costume design and editing. We never learn who the teacher is telling this story to as he explains the roots of German fascism. the voice over actor is 75 so this must take place in about 1958 as he looks back but we don't know why he is. This is a strange film and I did like it and I would give this an 8 out of 10 but I don't expect it to take home the Oscar.