Das weisse Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009)

Director:

Michael Haneke

Writer:

Michael Haneke (writer)

Release Date:

24 September 2009 (Austria)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

Plot:

Strange events happen in a small village in the north of Germany during the years just before World War I, which seem to be ritual punishment. The abused and suppressed children of the villagers seem to be at the heart of this mystery. |

Plot Keywords:

Church Service | Rural Life | Narration | Crime Against Child | Narrator

Awards:

4 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Christian Friedel	...	The School Teacher
Ernst Jacobi	...	The School Teacher (voice)
Leonie Benesch	...	Eva
Ulrich Tukur	...	The Baron
Ursina Lardi	...	The Baronin
Fion Mutert	...	Sigi
Michael Kranz	...	The Home Teacher
Burghart Klaußner	...	The Pastor
Steffi Kühnert	...	The Pastor's Wife
Maria-Victoria Dragus	...	Klara
Leonard Proxauf	...	Martin
Levin Henning	...	Adolf
Johanna Busse	...	Margarete
Thibault Sérié	...	Gustav
Josef Bierbichler	...	The Steward

Also Known As:

The White Ribbon (International: English title) (UK) (USA)
A White Ribbon (Europe: English title)
Il nastro bianco (Italy)
Le ruban blanc (France)
The White Tape or the Teacher's Tale (International: English title) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for some disturbing content involving violence and sexuality.

Runtime:

144 min

Country:

Austria | Germany | France | Italy

Language:

German | Italian | Polish | Latin

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:R (certificate #45622) | USA:R | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | Ireland:15A

Filming Locations:

Leipzig, Saxony, Germany

Company:

X-Filme Creative Pool

Trivia:

In an interview with Austrian magazine "Celluloid", Michael Haneke stated that he first planned "Das weiße Band" as a three-part TV-mini-series.

A careful and ambiguous analysis of evil

Fans of Michael Haneke's more morally shocking films such as 'Funny Games', 'Benny's Video' or the draining 'Time of the Wolf' might find themselves surprised by the quieter and slower analysis of evil in his latest work 'Das Weisse Band'.

The action takes place in a North German village shortly before the outbreak of the First World War and in structure presents a number of subtly drawn individual characters as they are caught up in a mysterious series of violent events.

In the hands of a mere moralist this could be an unbearable few hours. But it's credit to Haneke's skill as a film-maker that we are utterly caught up and absorbed by a large cast of children and adults.

One of the on-going arguments in Haneke's films seems to be the origins of human evil, or perhaps more precisely put, evil individual acts of human behaviour. Are evil acts always an individuals' responsibility or are they born in a particular climate where certain energies at work? This is the question Haneke appears to be exploring. (this was also a central question relating to French society in 'Cache'.)

One of the most disturbing things at the heart of the film is the fact that we do not know why particular acts of evil (including the maiming of a disabled child and the beating of a nobleman's son) take place, or who commits them. This is no 'whodunnit' although, with its retrospective voice-over from the School Teacher's p.o.v. we are let to believe for a long time that were in a crime/thriller genre.

Throughout his body of work so far, Haneke seems to be suggesting that looking for the sort of easy answers films and TV all too readily supply is part responsible for our misunderstanding how violence in society in fact appears. (Funny Games).

'The White Ribbon' bypasses the usual dramatical devices of motivation and blame and instead softly focuses on an environment (in this case Germany in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century) in which certain unhealthy energies are at work.

These energies include an emotionally repressed and joyless Protestantism, the mistreatment and oppression of women, the familial abuse of children, the fetishism of strong masculine and patriarchal values, and the un-breachable divide between the rich and the poor. Sitting over all this like an umbrella is the fact that the small provincial society depicted in the film is all but completely sealed off from wider society.

Another poster here has pointed out that Haneke is using his village as a microcosm to reflect Germany as a whole, and I would agree with that. Haneke's Dorf, whilst having an individual character, is a relative of Von Trier's Dogville in the sense that it stands for a larger set of national values. As such, Haneke seems to be diagnosing German society in the run up to the 'Great' War as one of authoritarianism, religious doubt, intolerance, and fear.

What is remarkable in such a film is how little human joy or love is to be found in such a seemingly idyllic rural landscape. the love strand (between the narrator Teacher and the dismissed 17yr old children's nurse) has a rather strained aspect. It is as if Haneke is suggesting that affection might also just be due to available opportunity.

One of the most moving scenes of The White Ribbon is when a young child brings his father, a Priest, a caged bird he has nursed back to health as a present, as the father's beloved pet canary has been killed (by his daughter). She killed it because of the bleak loveless household she's been reared in, a home in which a father shows more affection to a small bird than his own offspring.

Thus the scene symbolically depicts a child showing the parent love that that parent himself is unable of demonstrating. Tears fill the priest's eyes. It is a tiny moment of love and hope in an otherwise emotionally barren wasteland. It is also a symbol of how a new generations of Germans have had to deal with and heal previous centuries of pain.