The Inevitability Of Blowback

Rating: Null/10 (17 November 2009)

Another excellent film by Haneke. Some points...
1. Haneke's "Cache" used a mystery plot as a scaffold to examine the 1961 police massacre of Algerian protesters, an event which he then used as a symbol for the growing unease between France and Arabic minorities, and by extension, the West's mounting paranoia towards Arabs and Islam.
2. Haneke claims that "The White Ribbon" is about "the origins of every type of terrorism, be it of political or religious nature." This is an important statement, as it provides a guide as to how Haneke intends this film to be viewed.
3. The film takes place in an agricultural village in pre-World War 1 Germany, in which most of the locals work for an aristocratic land baron. Other characters include the local doctor, pastor, teacher, farmers and their respective women/wives/lovers/children.
4. The film is structured around a string of horrific crimes that befall the citizens of the village. But this is not a "whodunit mystery film". Instead, like Antonioni's "Blow Up" and "The Adventure", Haneke's mystery is never resolved, the crimes being used to make a series of far larger statements.
5. This film will appeal to a very limited audience. Like Tarr, Kubrick, Antonioni, Jancso, Wajda and Egoyan, Haneke is a cold, sometimes intellectual, director, who voids his films of narrative crutches and forces his audience to study every minute detail on screen. Like these directors, he uses a variety of distancing techniques, designed to instill an air of quiet contemplation.
6. In true Haneke fashion, the film begins with a confession of artifice, the narrator plainly stating that he is not quite sure whether his story is true or false. Of course the film is far less self-reflexive than "Cache", "Funny Games" and "Benny's Video", mostly because of its period setting.
7. With its stark black and white cinematography, the film works as a counterpoint to Dreyer's "Ordet" and Spielberg's "Schindler's List", a film which Haneke regards as "exploitative".
8. Haneke's Brechtian distancing effects at times feel gimmicky. Consider two scenes, one in which a boy is whipped by his father and another in which a man sits over a bed, his face obscured by a wall. These feel less like genuine attempts at alienation than impotent "copies of distancing effects".
9. All the crimes which take place in this film form an intricate web of "causes" and "effects". The village is a very morbid place, every relationship and interaction poisoned and perverse. Haneke takes aim at the way religion represses people sexually and emotionally, the way it bolsters a social hierarchy in which women are oppressed and mistreated and in which children lay prostrate to an abusive patriarchy which fetishizes masculinity and patriarchal values. He portrays an authoritarian world in which the divide between the rich and the poor is impenetrable, everyone subservient to someone else. This is a dark world in which values become evil the moment there are applied as a social rule, in which jealousies lead to violence and injustices and inequalities lead to various terrorist actions.
10. Haneke has made German, French and English language films. Has any other director so effortlessly hopped from one language to the next?
11. Haneke says his film is not about fascism, but we see clues in "The White Ribbon" as to how these German children of 1911 will later become either Nazis, Nazi supporters or men and women violently opposed to fascism. The seeds of a macabre future are being sown here.
12. The last scene of the film is a simple shot in which all the villagers gather and sit down within a church. The image then very slowly fades to black. This shot is intended to mirror a cinema audience, the seated villagers being a carefully composed reflection of the film's audience members. Haneke's point: recognise yourself.
13. Note that the 2 child victims in the film (the Baron's boy and the handicapped child) are not subjected to the harsh social structures which affect everyone else in the village. In some ways, they are jealously punished for the very freedoms they possess. Note too that whilst all the adult women are subservient and dutiful, trapped in an abusive system, the female children possess an outsiders view which allows them to question and rebel against the very system that entraps their mothers.
14. Many have complained that none of the crimes are resolved, but with a little detective work the diligent viewer can make educated guesses as to who performed each of the crimes and needle out their various motivations.
15. Late in the film a caged bird is killed, symbolising the refusal of the "terrorists" to become "domesticated" or "subservient". The owner of the bird then replaces it with another bird which he initially promised to set free. The point: man has abandoned his true parental responsibilities (to nurture and guide that which was born wild) in favour for possession and control. The captive will not be set free, lest he violently breaks away or the captor willingly lets him go.
16. Note the characters whispering in the final shot. Dark futures are being planned here. Note too the final conversation between the pastor and the teacher. This is a battle between "truth" and "curiosity" vs "willful delusion" and "false beliefs". The pastor lies to himself in the service up upholding the status quo.
17. Will time be kind to Haneke? He's a great director, but he needs to marry his intellect to stronger visuals.
8.9/10 – A bit too joyless, misanthropic and heavy-handed, but what else should we expect from a director nicknamed "The Ice King"? Nevertheless, the film has a powerful message, and the relationship between its narrator (a teacher) and a young girl is beautiful, respectful and optimistic. Of course, their age difference and her vulnerability suggests that even their romance is borne of dark opportunity.