Das weiße Band
Actually this is the very first Haneke I have seen. I heard of “Funny Games”, of “The Piano Teacher” and of course “Caché”, but I have never seen them and except for “Funny Games” I don’t actually know much about the films or their plot. Before I started watching this film, however, I knew about its plot a little bit: People die and the children are suspects. I also knew that there won’t be a ‘conclusion’ to this whodunit story. So how would I like it?
In the end, it turned out that “The White Ribbon” became one of the most suspenseful films I have seen in awhile. (Maybe because I haven’t actually seen many films in awhile.) I kept wanting to know what is going to happen next, and was completely drawn into that haunting atmosphere. While I perfectly knew that the movie is not going to give many hints, it was enough to give a picture.
The best part of the story was the mood and the ‘Germanness’ of the village. Throughout the movie, I think I have said “Oh my God, this is so German” about a million times. It’s a little bit like Dogville – of course humans are not all like in Dogville just like German villages at the beginning of the 20th century definitely weren’t such horrible places as in Haneke’s film. But the mood, especially the dialogues and the way people interacted with each other (especially that doctor and his midwife!) felt so incredibly realistic.
After watching the film, I immediately knew that I won’t be able to write about it in a satisfactory way, just because there actually is so, so much to write about, and I feel like my recent blog postings have gotten worse yet again. I blame it on the fact that I haven’t had any chance to write blog postings lately. ;)
But, at the same time, I couldn’t help myself to dig the internet for ‚secondary literature‘. I haven’t been able to find much interesting things in the German internet world, mostly because everybody didn’t say much besides relating the story to fascism; and while some comments in the New York Times review are interesting (while the review itself is pretty crappy), I haven’t been able to find so much analysis on the film itself. I wanted websites that dissect details about the film that I might have missed, and speculations as to what the motives were.
Obviously the children play an important role and they probably were the ones who committed all the crimes the whole time, but when it comes to analysis, I would read things like „This is what happens when children grow up unloved“. Ridiculous. Indeed it is a dangerous thing if a child grows up unloved, but these children definitely didn’t. Their parents actually cared for their children a lot, they were just using a very authoritarian method. When comparing these children to some parents nowadays who don’t spend any time with their children and put them in front of the TV all day, it is obvious to me that the pastor truly loved his children. The problem is that he shows his love in a way that we don’t agree with anymore nowadays.
The other thing that bugged me throughout the film were the choice of victims. First, there is the doctor, who happens to be the only parent who truly abuses his children. My speculation would be that the other children, who are actually loved, would not turn against their parents, because they know that and acknowledge it. However, to ease their suffering and the repression of their desires, they develop some sort of sadism that makes them turn against the weaker ones, like the only innocent characters in the story, Karli and Sigi. Maybe that is it, but it still feels too simple and wrong to me; I feel like I have overlooked things.
At any rate, I am hoping for more interesting comments on the film to show up on the internet someday, and until then, I will think about which Haneke I would want to watch next…
OK, I can not escape it anymore, I’m going to watch this as soon as possible now…
And tell me how you would interpret the story! I’m so looking forward to it :3
Your interpretation of the story is a thousand times more interesting than those fascism-interpretations. Aaaah, I finally MUST go and watch it.
And you can’t do anything wrong with your choice for the next Haneke. They all have his unique intellectual-artsy-violent atmosphere.
lmao. read this:
http://www.perlentaucher.de/artikel/5782.html
watch Caché next! to me, it is far and beyond his greatest film to date.
@Shii: You have to watch it, like right now! Actually I’m not so sure if you’ll like it, but then again, you do like Haneke after all, heh. I think my interpretation doesn’t actually say all that much – and while I agree with how the movie shows the foreboding of fascism, I just feel like the movie is actually more mysterious and complicated than that. To me, the characters are not only clichés, and the film tells so much more of a story than what people think is obvious on the surface.
@Gorp: Hahaha, yeah I read that article! I kind of disagree with literally every article that is dismissing the movie, for Knörer I think that he makes it too easy for himself, and for that New York Times guy I feel like he didn’t get what the movie was about. This is even worse for certain commentators in those articles. I think the movie is fairly ambiguous about what it wants to say when you look at the details, but some people just misinterpret it so badly.
Since I’m a little scared of “Funny Games”, “Caché” sounds like the most interesting to me too. What other Hanekes have you seen actually and how do you think they compare to “The White Ribbon”?
i really haven’t found a critic either, with whom I completely agree on this film. I don’t think it’s a masterpiece at all, in fact I find it pretty leaden most of the time – the acting by many of the grown-up actors irritated me (especially the standard misery-card played out by Lothar and with the exception of the girl that played the teacher’s love interest) and I really don’t feel like I gained anything from Haneke’s “hypothesis” and the ways in which he may have intended to present it. I guess I can understand why someone would feel compelled to actively resist this film (Knörer for example), though I really don’t view it as the disaster he claims it to be.
What I appreciate about the film is the incredible cast of children, and I am genuinely impressed by Haneke’s direction in that regard. I don’t have any pressing opinion on the style of the film – for all I care, it could have been done in color as well. It is nowhere as radical and innovative/disturbing a work as Caché was (I think his direction of actors has never been more impressive than in that film, nor has his talent of viewer-manipulation). The Piano Teacher is worth seeing mainly for the galvanizing duo of Huppert and Magimel. Funny Games is a freakish provocation done pretty well.
Haha oh my God. Now I get the impression that you hate the movie simply because everyone loves it. I have never seen anything with Susanne Lothar before so I didn’t know that she likes playing miserable types. (Somehow that makes her character rather lame now indeed, haha.) I thought that her character was well-played and her scenes with the doctor were just as disgusting as I thought they are supposed to be.
Style-wise, I don’t find it outstanding or innovative at all, I think it was much more the story that feels special to me. As for black/white vs. color, I do think that a colored film would have destroyed some of the depressing atmosphere in “The White Ribbon”. Somehow when I think of color films I think of Pierrot le Fou. XD
I thought the rest of the cast was decent, and indeed the children were pretty good. All in all, the acting was way beyond your typical German movie, and much better than in John Rabe, for example.
I don’t remember any of Knörer’s other reviews but I have a feeling that I usually disagree with him. I don’t really know what Haneke’s “hypothesis” is and from the few articles I have seen Haneke seems to not interpret much about his film either. I understand why Knörer feels like Haneke is patronizing the viewers, but I didn’t feel like that when I saw the movie – in fact, I rather felt like there are many ways to interpret the film, so I guess most of Knörer’s criticism just doesn’t apply to me. By the way, Perlentaucher.de also has some more articles on “The White Ribbon”. And then there is this guy who criticized Knörer’s article, but in the most ridiculous and unreadable way. Well, although I don’t agree with him, at least Knörer’s writing and his arguments are good.
Reading this little critics war makes me wonder if I changed my view upon movies now. It’s been awhile since I have thought about this question of whether a piece of art should be looked at independently from what “the author wanted”. Right now, I’d rather say that I don’t care about what Haneke wanted, but what he did there was something I ended up liking.
It’s been ages since I have seen an Huppert movie! That is reason enough for me to do so… someday, haha.
haha, i don’t hate it though! i am mostly just indifferent to it on an emotional level, and didn’t find the plotting of it to be terribly compelling to justify its 2.5 hour running time and, well, the leaden seriousness with which the viewer is pulled through the narrative. it all seems to be built on this vague fundament of angry children and austerely authoritative adults and their daily life I find quite banal – and in the end I am left with the sense that the whole narration and the point of reference that the teacher is meant to hold for us, really didn’t contribute much to gel the different parts of the movie together.
as for Knörer: he loves Tropical Malady and hates The New World, so I guess it is purely a matter of chance whether or not I happen to agree with his opinions or not xD
ps: wait a second, now I am confusing him with this other guy whos reviews are on filmzentrale.com xD he was actually the guy who hated The New World and complained that it wasn’t like Tropical Malady XD
Hahahahaha, what a hilarious mistake. XD But Knörer can’t spell “Y tu mamá también”, ahaha.
I understand how you can be indifferent to “The White Ribbon” – I can imagine that the film must be incredibly boring when you feel disconnected to it. For me, the teacher was the pleasant counterpart to the village people where everybody is sick. I thoroughly enjoyed his cute love with the young girl. He’s a little bit like the teacher in “Jugend ohne Gott” – or so I felt. Of course the comparison is not great, because here the teacher doesn’t actually do anything at all; but at least he’s someone who is in doubt of how the system worked.
PS. “The White Ribbon” is a great film, because it actually made us discuss it! ;)
What I liked about your interpretation was that it set the film on a similar level of violence that “El espiritu de la colmena” has. The children in El espiritu de la colmena are probably also loved and cared for – and in the end their tendency to be aggressive, subtly, of course, is nothing that comes from outside.
(By the way, I think Caché is the most overrated of Haneke’s films. XD His “Wolfzeit” is much more radical in some ways and certainly less pretentious.)
Perhaps it is coming from outside, but not from the lack of love. Just like you said, “El espiritu de la colmena” is even greater because it assumes that children can have twisted thoughts “just by themselves”. In “The White Ribbon” it’s obvious that the children feel repressed, but their evilness is so subtle and that makes the film great.
OMG, you guys are making me want to watch more than just one other Haneke, it’s a scheme! XD
Oh, the Germanness™! The screen oozed repression and general stuffiness for two hours. Lovely.
I was literally giggling with disgust in every doctor+midwife scene, they’re so great together! Their dialogue near the end had me just sitting there staring, how can you display so much disdain to another person in such a calm way, aaah! I loved it, I just don’t know why I enjoyed it so much!
On comparing “El espiritu de la colmena” and “Das weiße Band” I really wonder if the inherent cruelty children seem to posess is completely natural or formed by society. I am more fascinated with the loli-cruelty, it seems to be much more natural and innocent. It’s like watching a cat playing with a mouse.
The young Aryans (I’m horrible, I know.) however seem to be applying societal, adult cruelty, which is completely different. They just do it in their closed little children’s circle. They play house, so to speak. It does not have the feel of innocence or curiosity I sensed in “El espiritu de la colmena”
I absolutely agree about the teacher, he definitely felt like an apathetic version of the teacher in “Jugend ohne Gott”. (I have to reread that book. Again.) It would be interesting to know if Haneke was influenced by Horváth there. Other than that I get the feeling he used the teacher mainly to lighten up the story a bit, so the audience is not inclined to hang themselves after the movie. :P
Also, the interpretation that the whole point is to present us with the reason why Hitler became so big just does not convince me at all. Sure, it reeks of repression, but it is much more “democratic” if I may use this term. Here, everyone represses everyone else, this is an entirely different level than the diffuse fear of repression by a relatively removed entity called government. It may be coincidence but Uncle Adi and almost all of his pals weren’t exactly north German protestants, they were quite the oppposite.
I think the general theme is violence. Where it comes from, what it does to otherwise loving people and how it is perpetuated. It’s just that this particular place and time are a great way to drive the point home.
The Germanness! Yeah, it’s pretty sad that we can totally see that considering that we actually grew up in a fairly un-repressed society. Maybe it’s because you really can see the German people’s unhappiness on their faces? Hahaha.
It sounds so wrong when you say that a child’s cruelty is innocent, but then, to some degree it really is. I guess the comparison is somewhat bad because the little girl in “El espiritu de la colmena” really is very young while the children in “Das weiße Band” are actually very conscious about what they are doing and why that could be wrong, they are much older indeed. Haha, the Aryans indeed. ;)
I’m not sure whether being Catholic makes you so much more sensible to fascism. XD So yeah, apparently Haneke was indeed studying different types of fascism (he said it was very different in Germany and Italy, although I have no idea to which extent that is true), and he also said he wanted to make the movie about ‘violence’ in general, like you said. Sounds somewhat contradicting, but I too don’t like the idea of tying this story to fascism too much. I want to read “Jugend ohne Gott” too! For some reason, I completely forgot about the story, unlike for his other plays.
In my opinion, Haneke and Horváth are entirely different too. While Horváth always shows very realistic, down-to-earth stories with barely any ‘scandal’ at all, Haneke’s stories always seem to be very blatantly shocking. As much as “Das weiße Band” is supposed to be a stereotype, this kind of story does not really happen.