Column:

'Ribbon' an arresting look at pre-war Germany

By Thomas Leonard

Published March 19, 2010

So often in the study of Nazi Germany, the horrific evils of the Third Reich gleam so cataclysmically, we forget the quiet tragedies that shaped part of a generation of German men into monsters. That's the devastating brilliance of international sensation Michael Haneke's ferociously subtle pre-war study, "The White Ribbon."

Wide in thematic scope but intimate in practice, "The White Ribbon" takes a harrowing look at the strange events taking place in the fictional German village of Eichwald from 1913 to the 1914 assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

Studying the intergenerational relationships of a preacher's family, a widowed doctor and a hapless schoolteacher, Haneke creates a gruesome portrait of family and society in a quiet Protestant community unassumingly teetering on the brink of war.

This is not a war movie; there are no guns or tanks, and no trench warfare. But the potent stench of violence hangs thick in the air. Mysterious and grisly deaths begin to occur, and once the serene veneer of the village has cracked, we see the macabre realities happening in the seemingly quiet homes.

Shot with elegance in meticulously gorgeous black and white, "The White Ribbon" is a work of aesthetic perfection. The graceful, somber photography makes looking away unthinkable. Each frame is a nuanced snapshot.

The cinematography might be starkly black and white, but the moral ambiguity hanging over Eichwald is an area entirely gray. In a pre-war Germany of strict religious obedience and patriarchal respect, sexuality is repressed or used as a weapon and "purity" is held in the highest regard.

The children (a young cast turning jaw-dropping, effective performances) are beaten, abused and rigidly disciplined — Haneke presents an unnerving survey of the despondent generation that was only years away from the formal brutality and blind compliancy of Hitler Youth. Their chilling performances are consistent scene-stealers.

The slow-burn monstrosity scraps conventional storytelling in favor of a fragmented collage of uncomfortable instances in the village of Eichwald. The stories are woven together by the omniscient narrator and de facto hero, the nameless schoolteacher. His attentive eye sees a burgeoning evil in the children misunderstood and ignored by the other adults in the village.

Haneke, too, magnifies this unsettling coming-of-age story as the young generation becomes all too familiar with the realities of violence, death and power. "I gave God a chance to kill me, and he didn't," one child says as he walks a high railing. Those are the chilling words of an adolescent destined to believe he is a member of the "chosen" race.

It's this delicate allegory that makes "The White Ribbon" such an arresting work. On the surface, it's a quiet and beautifully filmed art-movie that makes you work to piece its enigmatic puzzle. Working below, Haneke has resolved to get to the proverbial bottom of a sadistic generation of German youth.

That's a lofty task to be saddled by the tiny village of spooky kids. Does Haneke succeed? That's debatable. But "The White Ribbon" certainly does. Whether you agree with the answers Haneke has found is irrelevant: His is a work of devastating elegance and frightening discomfort. There's plenty to look at and a lot to think about. It's one of the most evocative films in recent memory, and it's not to be missed.