Ignorance poses as Innocence: The White Ribbon

Rating: 10/10 (2 July 2010)

In a small village in Northern Germany in 1916 a series of bizarre and horrid things happen. There is no explanation for these events, only mute rumors and musings in a town confined by strict Protestant rules of judgment and behavior. The town Doctor on horseback is tripped by a trap wire hidden on a path, is injured, and must leave town for a hospital treatment for a while: upon return we learn that the town doctor is anything but kind in his verbal and physical abuse of his office manager/mistress who may be the mother of 'his child' - a mentally challenged boy cared for the mother/mistress who also cares for his naive other children by his deceased wife. A young boy, the son of the town Baron, is found in the woods, bound and beaten, and the town fails to produce information as to the brutality. A woman falls through a dangerous flooring and dies, her husband commits suicide, the mentally challenged boy is severely tortured, the Baron's cabbage farm is destroyed, the children of the large family of the town pastor are punished for varying reasons (each offending child must wear a 'white ribbon of innocence' to remind themselves to sin no more - the young boy's sin is physical self satisfaction), a building on the Baron's estate is burned, etc. Oddly since there are no identified culprits, the town focuses on the children as the possible perpetrators of the violence - since they are ignorant until they receive Confirmation in the church - a ritual supposed to bring the enlightenment of adulthood to those confirmed!
There are many stories in this magnificent film by the gifted Michael Haneke and none of them is fully resolved by the end of the film. It is the tenor of the city that seems to breed ill winds that in turn suggests that the town's inhabitants - curious and possibly dangerous children and adults with both overt and subliminal evil in their characters - are setting the scene for a country that could produce the evil demonstrated by the events of July 1917 which opened World War II. Haneke captures all of this terror and submerged hate and fear and abuse and character dysfunction in startling black and white photography. The townspeople are all fairly similar in appearance, made more so by the black and white imagery, and the only person in the town that has some semblance of humanity is the young schoolteacher (even in his discovery of courtship) that seems to make the statement that it is only through education that change can occur. Haneke has the courage and sensitivity to leave the audience guessing about the etiologies of all the evils we have witnessed and simply ends his film in slow fadeout as WW I ensues. It is a heart-stopping film, brilliantly directed and acted and photographed and accompanied by a musical score that emphasizes choral hymns sung by children. This is magnificent film-making! In German with English subtitles.
Grady Harp