The unexplainable desire for purity

Rating: 8/10 (29 June 2019)

Das weiße Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009) is a desperately dark story unfolding in a Protestant village of northern Germany just before the First World War. This microcosm is composed of a baron, a pastor, a doctor, ... and the plebs. Strange accidents will succeed one after the other, some worthy of a despicable barbarism, and will gradually pertain to a punitive ritual. The film is based on a few abject characters and Michael Haneke masterfully films the darkness that ineluctably infiltrates the hearts of the fellow citizens from this German provincial environment, thanks to an aesthetic apotheosis and a cinematic sobriety. As a synthesis: Das weiße Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009) is a masterpiece. 8/9 of 10.