DVD REVIEW: The White Ribbon (2009)

INTOLERABLE CRUELTY

If real life were ever as cold, bleak and irredeemable as the fictional realms depicted by Michael Haneke and Lars Von Trier, it wouldn't be worth living a day longer. Paradoxically, the world has never looked as startlingly beautiful in its desolation, as it is pictured in films like Antichrist and The White Ribbon. The latter, winner of the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival last year, has the most breathtaking high-contrast black&white cinematography by Christian Berger since Sven Nykvist shot Bergman's b&w masterpieces. And there is a little bit of Bergman in The White Ribbon too. In its depiction of an austere cruelty displayed by various characters living in a north German village before the start of the First World War, it's decidedly Bergmanesque. Yet, when Bergman examined a character's misery, he did so with feeling. Haneke does it with clinical detachment. He uses the narrative voice of an old man revisiting events that took place in the small pastoral community where he worked as a teacher, over one winter. The voice speaks without betraying any emotion. 

The White Ribbon comes with a tagline 'A German children's story'. It's one of the film's many ironies. For, unlike the innocence and purity (words that come up twice in the film in a very disturbing context) of childhood, the young ones in this seemingly idyllic setting are anything but that. It all starts with the local doctor's horse tripping over a wire that's deliberately planted in his path. A series of bizarre accidents follow and the population of the village is unable to unravel the mystery. The Baron who employs half of them and the pastor who looks after their spiritual well-being are the two power centres of the community -- both equally authoritarian in their own realms. The Baron is hated for his selfishness, the icy pastor cuts a sorry figure as a vicious tyrant who rules his own brood at home with a iron whip. The doctor, the third important spoke in the wheel, persecutes his mistress with savage indifference and sexually abuses his teenage daughter. 

These are the upholders of morality and tradition and the dispensers of values. Is it any wonder that the generation that grew up under their watch voted for Nazism and perhaps joined its ranks as well? Haneke alludes to this link between this oppressive community and the emergence of a totalitarian state in Germany as a reaction to the humiliating defeat in the First World War. And then perhaps, he also uses this tale about extremely aberrant behaviour set in a very 'normal' community to suggest that every society on earth has the potential to morph into a savage mass turning violent on innocents to avenge their own degradation. 

With the skill of a master craftsman, Haneke puts together this intriguing film which throws up many questions, but doesn't want to feed the audience with ready-made answers. There aren't any. When you can get over the moral complexities of The White Ribbon, pause on the spectacular landscapes that Berger has captured (shot in colour and then converted to black & white). The beauty and purity of nature never contrasted as poignantly with the depravity of mankind. And then dwell on the performances. There are at least half-a-dozen children between the ages of four and fourteen who play major roles and each one of them has a face and poise you can reflect on for days. As for the adults, Christian Friedel who plays the school teacher and Burghart Klaussner as the cold-blooded cleric are outstanding in an ensemble where it's almost impossible to choose. 

It's rare to find a film you can watch over and over again and read and re-read different meanings and symbols into it. The White Ribbon is all the more valuable because such films are so much harder to find these days.