The White Ribbon

[Ezee E]

Non-English Trailer (http://twitchfilm.net/site/view/trailer-arrives-for-hanekes-palme-dor-winning-the-white-ribbon/)

[B-side]

Pretty black and white. This will be good.

[Boner M]

I wanna see this again already.

[ledfloyd]

i didn't love it. haneke's craft always impresses me, but i find the way he gets his ideas across irksome.

[Spaceman Spiff]

i didn't love it. haneke's craft always impresses me, but i find the way he gets his ideas across irksome.

This is his least didactic movie though (I can agree that Haneke veers into 'annoying' territory on occasion - even in his best movies), and perhaps his most formally impressive. The craft behind this film is absolutely stunning.

[soitgoes...]

This is his least didactic movie though (I can agree that Haneke veers into 'annoying' territory on occasion - even in his best movies), and perhaps his most formally impressive. The craft behind this film is absolutely stunning.Maybe least didactic, but he's definitely still telling us something. The last shot pretty much signifies that. The church audience looking directly at us, the film's audience, as the film fades to black slowly, is Haneke pretty much indicting us as being no different than the characters in his film. Or at least that's how I interpreted it.

I hope this makes the Portland Film Festival next month.

[ledfloyd]

Maybe least didactic, but he's definitely still telling us something. The last shot pretty much signifies that. The church audience looking directly at us, the film's audience, as the film fades to black slowly, is Haneke pretty much indicting us as being no different than the characters in his film. Or at least that's how I interpreted it.

I hope this makes the Portland Film Festival next month.
that seems to be his general MO. i read a negative review that called him a fundamentalist who warns you about the dangers of fundamentalism. seems fairly apt to me. this is definitely his film that vilifies the audience the least but i still am not clear what it's point is. bad parenting created nazis? power makes people evil? the best message i can get from it is that 'you should always question those above you and if you don't you are implicit in their crimes.' which is something i agree with to some extent, but i still feel he's bullying the audience to get there. his 'rape the viewer into submission' mentality is something i can't get down with.

[soitgoes...]

that seems to be his general MO. i read a negative review that called him a fundamentalist who warns you about the dangers of fundamentalism. seems fairly apt to me. this is definitely his film that vilifies the audience the least but i still am not clear what it's point is. bad parenting created nazis? power makes people evil? the best message i can get from it is that 'you should always question those above you and if you don't you are implicit in their crimes.' which is something i agree with to some extent, but i still feel he's bullying the audience to get there. his 'rape the viewer into submission' mentality is something i can't get down with.It is about cause and effect (the Nazi angle). A repressed, cruel environment will eventually lead to violence. I think the film is about control over others, and the struggle, as well as the consequences of the struggle, for it. The key scene in the film for me is the caged bird. The pastor feels the need to cage a wild bird. Man's control over nature. He tells his son he can heal another injured wild bird, but must promise to release it upon its healing. His daughter struggles to free herself from his control by killing his pet bird. The pastor accepts his son's bird, the one he made him promise to free, as a replacement, his son submitting to his father. The entire film is full of these struggles. The baron and the townpeople. The church's power over the community. Adults over their children, and the children learning their parents sins by silently exerting their own control over each other. The teacher and Eva seem to be Haneke's counterpoint on what has to be. It makes more sense in my head than it probably reads here.



I do need to see this again. There's quite a bit Haneke's trying to say, and I for one have never had a problem with his messages.

[NickGlass]

Visually enthralling, sure, but strangely developed. It sounds bizarre, but the most appropriate adjective I can apply is "lumpy." Then again, I vastly prefer Haneke in a modern, technologically driven setting.

[Mysterious Dude]

So those kids totally did all that shit, right?

[Ezee E]

So those kids totally did all that shit, right?
A few people I've talked with that don't care much about film have seen this, and while they hated it, they've all had long discussions about "which one did it," and why. Little do they know, it's much more discussion then they've ever done about say... Taken.

[Beau]

that seems to be his general MO. i read a negative review that called him a fundamentalist who warns you about the dangers of fundamentalism. seems fairly apt to me. this is definitely his film that vilifies the audience the least but i still am not clear what it's point is. bad parenting created nazis? power makes people evil? the best message i can get from it is that 'you should always question those above you and if you don't you are implicit in their crimes.' which is something i agree with to some extent, but i still feel he's bullying the audience to get there. his 'rape the viewer into submission' mentality is something i can't get down with.

Why are you looking for a message? Where do we get raped while watching this film? Tell me, if it weren't for Haneke's name on the credits and the vaguely suggestive intro narration, would you bemoan the director's aggressiveness towards his audience? It's a portrait of a town and its denizens. It's very calm, concerned with texture, the feeling of oppression and isolation. The story is also told by a reminiscing narrator, so there's an element of remembered pain, remembered bliss, which accounts for the ghostly, distant, moody images. Looking for an all-encompassing "point" is a way of trivializing it. Haneke does a good job of trivializing it all by himself during some interviews, but that's why I never care about what a director has to say about his own films unless the director is Andrei Tarkovksy, who seems to me one of the few filmmakers who actually understands his own films.

[Beau]

It is about cause and effect (the Nazi angle). A repressed, cruel environment will eventually lead to violence. I think the film is about control over others, and the struggle, as well as the consequences of the struggle, for it. The key scene in the film for me is the caged bird. The pastor feels the need to cage a wild bird. Man's control over nature. He tells his son he can heal another injured wild bird, but must promise to release it upon its healing. His daughter struggles to free herself from his control by killing his pet bird. The pastor accepts his son's bird, the one he made him promise to free, as a replacement, his son submitting to his father. The entire film is full of these struggles. The baron and the townpeople. The church's power over the community. Adults over their children, and the children learning their parents sins by silently exerting their own control over each other. The teacher and Eva seem to be Haneke's counterpoint on what has to be. It makes more sense in my head than it probably reads here.



I like this. It's not a strict one-note message, but a series of echoes and resemblances, repeated notes, an ambiance, etc.

[Beau]

The last shot pretty much signifies that...

This part is more along the lines of the 'on the face' Haneke ledfloyd was chastising. I can understand the sentiment, but I can't help but feel that, for some viewers, there's a bit of carry-over from Haneke's previous films -- especially Funny Games -- when viewing this much more subtle, even beautiful, movie. I guess it's inevitable, but it's also unfair to the film in question.

[soitgoes...]

So those kids totally did all that shit, right?
The kids did some of the stuff, but it really isn't about who did what. It's about the sickness throughout the town (Germany). Everyone's to blame.

[Ezee E]

The kids did some of the stuff, but it really isn't about who did what. It's about the sickness throughout the town (Germany). Everyone's to blame.

I think Antoine may have been joking about it.

[Beau]

I think both of you are right. It's both a spoiler and a joke. So versatile.

[soitgoes...]

This part is more along the lines of the 'on the face' Haneke ledfloyd was chastising. I can understand the sentiment, but I can't help but feel that, for some viewers, there's a bit of carry-over from Haneke's previous films -- especially Funny Games -- when viewing this much more subtle, even beautiful, movie. I guess it's inevitable, but it's also unfair to the film in question.
I agree. It's the preconception of what is expected of Haneke. I don't think on its own, that this film is anywhere near the level of "in your face" as many of his other films. The ending is the only moment that comes close to that, but it still isn't as heavy-handed as his other films. Which I guess is exactly what you just said. :lol:

[soitgoes...]

I think Antoine may have been joking about it.
Ah. Nevermind.

[Dillard]

*spoilers*

I liked this quite a bit. Haneke is often accused of making bleak and oppressive films, and to that I offer the case of the schoolteacher and Eva's relationship. As soitgoes points out, it works as a counterpoint to the cruelty that takes place in the town. I loved how it gives a reprieve from the ongoing mystery. There's a regular rhythm of the narrative dropping away from the mystery to enter into the poignant, exciting world of courting. For example, the nighttime scene where Eva shows up at the door of the schoolhouse, perhaps having heard the organ from outside. My favorite part of the scene is when Eva settles down at the foot of the organ to listen to the schoolteacher's playing (a gift to her), and how Haneke respects the intimacy of the moment, keeping the camera at a distance. I enjoyed these escapes so much that I felt a keen twinge of disappointment when the midwife takes the bike from the schoolteacher. This is a juncture in the film, breaking the rhythm of the reprieves. Out of it Haneke leads us briskly towards the climactic scenes in the pastor's house. The schoolteacher, deprived of his means of escape, is forced to confront the mystery, putting the pieces together that he has noticed and pointed out to us before. The schoolteacher is the only adult able to make sense of the situation (he is not blinded like others are by their social position or beliefs or loves). Such a town needs his voice of reason and compassion.

8.5/10

[Dillard]

Back-and-forth between Dan Jardine and Ben Livant on the film at The House Next Door. The article (http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010/02/poisoned-well-of-truth-the-white-ribbon/) is titled "Poisoned Well (of Truth?): The White Ribbon."

[Raiders]

Haneke understands social structures and he effectively displays a town suffocating itself in its institutions and hierarchy, the violent outbursts coming (seemingly) from those at the bottom most afflicted. Haneke pinpoints very clearly the ignorance contained in these figures of society and especially in the town's pastor, a cold disciplinarian who sees no passion or love for his own family. But, the man just doesn't understand humanity or warmth. The schoolteacher meant to counterbalance the town's emotional stagnation is a rather dull pushover and hardly a convincing argument. Perhaps that is Haneke's point, that in this time in this country, those who were capable of tenderness and emotion were peripheral and useless in the wake of the oppressive social regime. But still, I was left nodding my head in appreciation (particularly in light of the admittedly terrific craft) but thoroughly unmoved.

I would also add that I suspect Haneke's comments regarding this film as a picture of the root of all fascism is very reductive and certainly an incomplete equation, but that's neither here nor there.

[Dillard]

But, the man just doesn't understand humanity or warmth. The schoolteacher meant to counterbalance the town's emotional stagnation is a rather dull pushover and hardly a convincing argument. Perhaps that is Haneke's point, that in this time in this country, those who were capable of tenderness and emotion were peripheral and useless in the wake of the oppressive social regime. The schoolteacher is a bit naive, and certainly not in a position to overcome the town's deeply-rooted cruelty to redeem it in some fashion. But what did you want to see more out of the character to proves Haneke's understanding of humanity/warmth? The schoolteacher's ability to love and receive love was enough for me.

[Philosophe_rouge]

this film reminded me a lot of Le Sang des betes, especially the shots towards the end of the church. So much like the abattoirs in the former film, that are built to look like churches, and how the montage displays them in that film. I liked this a lot, easily my favourite Haneke.

[Sxottlan]

I loved this movie. Mysterious and epic.

[Grouchy]

http://vitalstats.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/white-ribbon-1.jpg

This was amazing. Understatement: Haneke can direct. Pretentious but true statement: Haneke is one of the few directors alive whose movies actually move cinema forward. One of the things that impressed me the most about this is that it's one of the few films that achieve the density of characters and plot of a novel. And it's not like it's particularly long. There are longer, more loudly epic movies, but this is just so thick with plot and character development that it stands on a class almost all of its own.

As do the visuals. This is the best modern black and white cinematography I've seen next to Man Who Wasn't There. The detail of composition here is incredible, focusing the white light on specific areas on the screen and leaving gradual levels of obscurity on all the others. What's more, the pacing of the shots is also crisp - it creates a strange kind of beat the movie walks to. Kubrick would be proud.

Continuing the line of Caché, we have a story that's presented to us as a mystery and that ends pretty much unresolved. However, even while I agree that the plot isn't the main thing, I don't think this is as ambiguous - the kids totally did all that shit. What's more of a mystery are their motives. Maybe they hurt the baron's son because of envy. Maybe they hurt the retarded kid because of blind hatred. Maybe they attempted to kill the doctor to defend his molested daughter. Maybe they didn't have anything to do with the farmer's wife and that was really an accident, because that murder makes no sense. What matters is the depiction of a society so religious and hypocritical that they allow their children to have glimpses of a world wallowed in sin while severely punishing them for normal stages of their growing process.

Really, I could talk for ages about this film.

EDIT: It's hilarious that anything could win a Best Cinematography Award over this, let alone Avatar.

[soitgoes...]

Finally Spinal. 1/2 star too low, but whatever.

[Spinal]

A lot to like here, but I wouldn't place it among Haneke's five best films. Despite looking like a masterpiece, it isn't as profound or emotionally involving as his best work. There aren't really any bad scenes, but I'm hard-pressed to think of a whole lot of great ones. Haneke films usually have a captivating lead and that 'holy crap!' moment. This one has a bland protagonist and a 'revelation' that seems quite obvious 2 hours before it happens.

[Spinal]

Finally Spinal. 1/2 star too low, but whatever.

Well, you're not gonna like that I lowered it.

[Boner M]

Yeah, this didn't hold up for me on 2nd viewing as much as I'd hoped. Still love the craft of it, but it's a little barren on ideas compared to Code Unknown, Cache and La Pianiste.

[Boner M]

a 'revelation' that seems quite obvious 2 hours before it happens.
Wait... what?

[Spinal]

Wait... what?

Well, you tell me ...

Isn't it supposed to be surprising that the children are responsible? Or was I supposed to know that all along?

[Ezee E]

Well, you tell me ...

Isn't it supposed to be surprising that the children are responsible? Or was I supposed to know that all along?
Hmm... I didn't even think it was revealed to who did it a la Cache.

With that, I like your criticisms. I was thinking of checking it out again, as Haneke's films usually get better with multiple viewings, and see if anything changed.

[Spinal]

Hmm... I didn't even think it was revealed to who did it a la Cache.


Well, not specifically. But ...

Isn't it strongly suggested that the younger generation has taken their parent's strict discipline and coldness to darker, more secretive places?

[Ezee E]

Well, not specifically. But ...

Isn't it strongly suggested that the younger generation has taken their parent's strict discipline and coldness to darker, more secretive places?
Definitely implied, although I wouldn't say that the film actually suggested that it was the children. At least now in a revealing way.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Well, not specifically. But ...

Isn't it strongly suggested that the younger generation has taken their parent's strict discipline and coldness to darker, more secretive places?

I'm pretty sure this was supposed to be common knowledge from the start. I didn't ever think that was a mystery, or that it was treated as any kind of reveal.

[Boner M]

Well, you tell me ...

Isn't it supposed to be surprising that the children are responsible? Or was I supposed to know that all along?
Pretty much in agreement with E and KF. No to the former, and sorta to the latter. I think soitgoes has the film pegged. I agree with the interpretation, hinted at by him earlier in the thread, that our growing need for answers and closure implicates us in the film's witch hunt.

[NickGlass]

A lot to like here, but I wouldn't place it among Haneke's five best films. Despite looking like a masterpiece, it isn't as profound or emotionally involving as his best work.

Indeed. And I still can't help but use the adjective "lumpy" when describing this film.

[Spinal]

I'm pretty sure this was supposed to be common knowledge from the start. I didn't ever think that was a mystery, or that it was treated as any kind of reveal.

OK, so I guess I really didn't understand the point of this film.

[Kurosawa Fan]

OK, so I guess I really didn't understand the point of this film.

Well, it's not like I had a sit down with Haneke and he explained things to me, that's just the way I saw it.

[Spinal]

At any rate, what I know is that I was really waiting for the film to take off and instead it just seemed to stay at a constant level throughout. Haneke's previous films have been so much more dynamic.

[Kurosawa Fan]

At any rate, what I know is that I was really waiting for the film to take off and instead it just seemed to stay at a constant level throughout.

I would agree with this criticism., though I think a bit more highly of the film than you do.

[Spinal]

I would agree with this criticism., though I think a bit more highly of the film than you do.

I'm not really sure where I'm at, right now. Still trying to decide whether it's me that's the problem or the film.

[Derek]

I'm not really sure where I'm at, right now. Still trying to decide whether it's me that's the problem or the film.

I had the same issue as you. I kept waiting for the film to take off and it never really did. I also thought it was meant to be ambiguous throughout the film as to who was committing the acts (hence the large majority of the film focusing on the teacher's investigations) and that it was more strongly implied that it was in fact the children all along. If not, then the film it more much ado about nothing than I thought.

[Ezee E]

Haneke hasn't really had any great revealing comments about the movie in his interview either, except that these children are the people that grow up to be the Nazis that we know about. I was disappointed about that when I went to Telluride, because his responses for movies like Benny's Video, Funny Games, and one other are so condescending to me that I start to laugh.

Love that guy.

[Ezee E]

The only thing that confuses me about it all being the kids is the shot of the man that's ruining the crops. He's clearly not a kid.

[Grouchy]

The only thing that confuses me about it all being the kids is the shot of the man that's ruining the crops. He's clearly not a kid.
Huh, it is very clear who that is. He's the son of the deceased woman who intentionally boycotts the crops and fights with his father as a result.

[Ezee E]

Huh, it is very clear who that is. He's the son of the deceased woman who intentionally boycotts the crops and fights with his father as a result.
I'll have to watch it again. Seemed like a bigger person as the shot was only from the back.

[Grouchy]

I'll have to watch it again. Seemed like a bigger person as the shot was only from the back.
Yes, but he's a young man in his 20-somethings.

Watch it again at some point. I think I remember a pretty long scene where the father and son argue about ruining the crops.

[Spinal]

Yes, but he's a young man in his 20-somethings.

Watch it again at some point. I think I remember a pretty long scene where the father and son argue about ruining the crops.

Yes, this is true.

[Mysterious Dude]

Haneke hasn't really had any great revealing comments about the movie in his interview either, except that these children are the people that grow up to be the Nazis that we know about. I was disappointed about that when I went to Telluride, because his responses for movies like Benny's Video, Funny Games, and one other are so condescending to me that I start to laugh.

Love that guy.
Some directors should probably talk about their movies less. Haneke is one of them. Also, Spike Lee.

[transmogrifier]

Some directors should probably talk about their movies less. Haneke is one of them. Also, Spike Lee.

ALL directors should talk about their movies less. They tend to use interviews as an opportunity to add thematic depth to the film after the fact, when the film really needs to live and die on its own merits, not on the justifications of its creator when questioned by a sycophantic journalist.

The only type of stuff I'm really interested in from the film-maker is dirty anecdotes about the sexual exploits of the actors and actresses.

[Rowland]

ALL directors should talk about their movies less. They tend to use interviews as an opportunity to add thematic depth to the film after the fact.Yeah, listening to Richard Kelly's commentary for Donnie Darko made me like the film significantly less. And then he released that Director's Cut...

[Spinal]

Guess I'll take the other side and say that I have always enjoyed hearing Haneke talk about his films. I find him to be a fascinating intellect.

[Ezee E]

Guess I'll take the other side and say that I have always enjoyed hearing Haneke talk about his films. I find him to be a fascinating intellect.
Exactly. Despite some of the interviews being ridiculous, some shots will have new meaning to me the next time around, when before I may have found it confusing, no meaning at all, or misinterpreted it.

[transmogrifier]

Exactly. Despite some of the interviews being ridiculous, some shots will have new meaning to me the next time around, when before I may have found it confusing, no meaning at all, or misinterpreted it.

But if you have to be told what to look for, doesn't that take away from the achievement of the film?

[Derek]

But if you have to be told what to look for, doesn't that take away from the achievement of the film?

You never miss things in films? Don't you ever read a review or a MatchCut post that makes you reconsider how you view a film or that helps you to see something in a different light? Obviously, there are cases where a filmmaker does a poor job of bringing their ideas to light in there films, but there also times where viewers are on a different wavelength and a nudge in the right direction can be helpful.

[transmogrifier]

You never miss things in films? Don't you ever read a review or a MatchCut post that makes you reconsider how you view a film or that helps you to see something in a different light? Obviously, there are cases where a filmmaker does a poor job of bringing their ideas to light in there films, but there also times where viewers are on a different wavelength and a nudge in the right direction can be helpful.

Of course I miss things, but I'd be worried as a filmmaker if my audience was missing things constantly and I found the need to explain my films after the fact in detail. A film is a stand alone object, not an interactive presentation, so I find personally directors who constantly talk about their own films to be rather tedious. Make the film and let audiences get what they get out of it, or become a professor of Sociology and lecture on the the nature of society explicitly, but don't try to combine the two, as I think it is inherently self-defeating.

But that's my opinion.

[transmogrifier]

Also, I'm pretty cynical. If the director points out something important I missed, I'm likely to think "Wht didn't the film make that clear in the first place?" or if he points out something subtle and flavoursome not vital to the plot I'm likely to think "Why are you trying to prove how clever you are?" and if he points out something that I think is totally stupid but missed initially and thus liked the film more than I otherwise would have I'm gonna think "Was this film made by an idiot?" and if he purposefully narrows down the reading of the film based on his "intentions", then I'm gonna think "Piss off and let me approach the film in my own manner, fool!" and then I'm going to set his cat on fire.