Violence Begets Violence

Rating: 10/10 (27 September 2019)

The Palme d'Or to most is considered the superlative film award any movie can achieve. Now, is the highest prize Cannes Film Festival can offer a confirmation that the winner is "one of the greats?" Not at all. Does it mean the awardee has created something "great?" Possibly. One of those such victors, a German picture called The White Ribbon, seems to get close to being "one of the greats." Director Michael Haneke's tour de force exemplifies such a high quality of motion picture it's hard to decide where to begin.
A small Northern German town in 1913 may be just days away from the declaration of World War 1, but this quaint village breeds a true horror that will surely birth a second one. When the violent maiming of a child sends the townsfolk into a paranoid panic, they soon resort to an authoritarian regime out of fear. Children's movements are due to be reported regularly, freedoms become restricted, and minor atypical behaviors will be reported. Too often are freedoms taken in the service of protection. This social contract is a fallacy as no one is ever truly safe. Violence spurs even within the children's own homes: adolescents are smacked for disobedience; a preacher straps his own son's hands to the side of their bed in an effort to keep him from "touching himself" while everyone knows the town doctor touches his own daughter. On the cover of The White Ribbon, a box quote saying this movie is about "a search into the roots of all evil" is made hard to take seriously when you see evil has already blossomed.
Yet, the roots of all evil need someone to plant the seed. Here, violence just begets violence. I won't beat around the bush, there was a powerful desire to slug the preacher across the jaw, along with a few of the other prime characters. I suspect those feelings won't be unique only to me. Asimov once said that "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." Well, I believe the quote could be altered to "violence is the last refuge of the oppressed." As we learn about how our good Christian characters aren't as innocent as they seem, we begin to understand why the cases go unsolved: how can we expect them to care about solving the crimes if no one is innocent? The kids fight, lie, steal, and behave erratically. No parent is willing to believe their own child would attempt to drown another for a flute (even if they did, the kid would still find themselves on the receiving end of their father's fist). If they act this way as kids, who will they be as adults? Given the time period and country, we already know the answer.
Supposing that my opinion wasn't already apparent, I'll make it clearer: there wasn't a single bad performance in this movie. More than 7,000 children were interviewed, and the casted ones don't hold back. A narration provided by actor Christian Friedel, who plays the local schoolteacher, is no less than fantastic when guiding us. All of this is aided with the direction of Haneke. The choice to shoot in stark black and white has multiple advantages: shadows are more defined, and with what little light there is in the frame, where the light goes is where the eye goes. Completely at the mercy of the director. Every shot is so carefully constructed, one could steal any frame to hang up on the wall of a modern art gallery. It would be easy for any director to use music as a quick path to the heart strings, but Haneke is no such director. The movie is noticeably absent of music, containing only diegetic sources of melody like a fair or church choir. Every detail and choice is deliberate.
Some will accuse this two-and-a-half-hour movie of being fairly slow; I'd suggest them to take up chess or fishing. Many will treat this as a classic whodunnit movie, where you leave the experience trying to figure out the "doer." I don't believe it matters. We bear witness to many horrific acts in the film that go unpunished, and compared to what is unsolved, things don't seem all that abnormal in the end. The adults are perplexed, however. They teach their kids manners: tell them how to act, make them wear ribbons to understand innocence, make sure they don't become too rambunctious. They just want the best for their offspring. Why are these awful attacks happening? Who'd want to punish such good, innocent people?