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This is possibly not the best film to see after five hours' sleep, two plane trips and on a largely empty stomach, but it says much for Haneke's Palme d'Or-winner that it still riveted my attention throughout its 144-minute running time.

Shot in black and white and set in what appears to be nineteenth-century rural Germany (the precise date is a crucial late revelation), it initially looks as though Haneke has come over all Bergman and Dreyer on us - there are a great many scenes of a thin-lipped pastor (who could easily have been played by Gunnar Björnstrand) icily admonishing his various charges in a small church straight out of Winter Light, and the stunning compositions (Christian Berger was the DOP) have more than a hint of Nykvist to them.

But it's a Haneke film through and through, mixing icy verbal confrontation (the scene in which the doctor systematically takes his long-term mistress apart is particularly hard to watch) with an abiding impression of unspeakable cruelty about to be meted out - though the children are thrashed behind a forbiddingly closed door, their cries of distress sound horribly authentic. I'm deliberately not going to reveal too much, though - this is a film whose impact comes from the gradual accretion of tiny, sometimes barely perceptible details, with Haneke often cutting at the precise frame where something seems about to be revealed.

(I hear this is getting an English voiceover in the US, though the version I saw was in the original German. I doubt it will make much difference - it's not much of a stretch to imagine the narrator having moved to an English-speaking country and it might even accentuate the abiding L.P. Hartley "the past is a foreign country" impression).

We want a trailer!

I'm seeing this a week Friday and I'm IMPOSSIBLY excited!

Will watch, but remain skeptical given Haneke's thin writing skills (he succeeds so much more thoroughly through adaptation, ie. La Pianiste).

Just saw this yesterday. It's excellent, one of his best - although I think Cache is better. It is certainly Haneke at his most humanistic - this is an interesting work for him, along with Cache, in that it is both a 'message' film and a human drama. The ensemble acting is fantastic and the B&W photography is stunning. The narration in this screening was in the original German, it is a really stupid idea to have it changed to English in the American release (and it'll make it ineligible for the FL film Oscar, too). A very involving mystery, but I know there's a lot of clues that I didn't catch (Haneke, of course, doesn't give us the answer at the end) so I'll have to watch this at least once more before I can really feel qualified talking about it. Giving it an 'A' grade for now, but I could easily switch it to an 'A+' and I just might after pondering it a few more days. Nothing - the writing in this film isn't bad at all. I was worried at some points that it was over-expository (the pastor's numerous speeches about the white ribbons seemed directed at the audience rather than at the other characters in the scene) but its definitely not thin here.

Has an American release date been announced?

puxzkkx wrote:the writing in this film isn't bad at all.

The problem is, though, you like Cache

knives wrote:Has an American release date been announced?

December 30 (probably in NY & LA)

A really impressive achievement, but like a lot of Haneke, it doesn't go much beyond the cerebral (a second viewing might change things, but second viewings don't do his films many favours, in my experience). The cinematography, as noted, is exquisite; the performances pitch-perfect. The message manufacture is relatively restrained, but also relatively obvious. If you're looking for a much more nuanced and complex use of the-village-as-metaphor-for-the-state, see Heimat. This allegory does what it says on the box, but I'm less and less impressed with what Haneke's films have to say even while I admire how he says it. Whatever my own reservations, A Great Film. I've capitalised that, but it really feels like it should be embossed on ivory card.

I think that the "village-as-state" metaphor is definitely here, but I don't think its just about the rise of fascism. I think a lot of it has more to do with how women and ESPECIALLY children have traditionally been treated within the German family unit for centuries.

International Trailer with no English subs.

The Observer has an interview with Haneke and a 2 minute clip from the film:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/oct ... ite-ribbon" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The print I saw tonight was the U.S. release version, inclusive of Sony logo, and I'm happy to say the voiceover remains subtitled and in the original German. The film itself is fantastic - Michael B nailed it a while back. But one thing to add is that there's also a subtle but surprising degree of humanism present. The romance between the teacher and the nanny is probably the sweetest and most optimistic relationship I can remember Haneke depicting in one of his movies (although I'm sure someone will correct me).

In the past, it's been more admiration than outright love for the Haneke films I liked and The White Ribbon is no exception: objectively it is a damn fine film, less obviously flawed than my personal 2009 fave The Hurt Locker, and it is more compassionate than previous Hanekes but at the end my overriding impression is still that his films are relentlessly, oppressively bleak. There is and always ought to be a place for the kind of work of art that Haneke produces, but am I alone in finding his output, while often undeniably excellent, also somewhat offputtingly joyless? It is telling that many of my favourite scenes in this film displayed a hitherto (as far as I am aware) unseen compassion and even tenderness which helps to offset the cruelty and corruption suggested elsewhere: the romance between the teacher and Eva is very touching and there is a lovely, affectionate and affecting moment when riding out into the countryside, where she rests her head against his shoulder. Even more moving are two scenes between the pastor and one of his young sons, and it involves a sick bird that the boy brings home one day. I won't say anything further but it makes me think that the couple and the boy act like the moral conscience of this film, the single ray of light in a Stygian darkness. The implication seemed to be: many of these children will grow up to trigger the second world war and the Holocaust two decades from now but some of these villagers have not forgotten what it means to be human.

AV Club interview with Haneke.

I'd imagine interviewing Haneke is a lot like meeting your girlfriend's father for the first time.

Mr Finch wrote: There is and always ought to be a place for the kind of work of art that Haneke produces, but am I alone in finding his output, while often undeniably excellent, also somewhat offputtingly joyless?

My problem is the films often don't match the critical acclaim I read in press reviews. Cache was good but it wasn't the masterpiece I had been led to believe, and I feel the same way about The White Ribbon. The problem this time is the film is indebted to, and under the influence of Ingmar Bergman. As has been mentioned above, the priest is straight out of a Bergman film; I felt the model was the one in Fanny and Alexander but this is no Fanny and Alexander. While it didn't match my expectations, it's still a decent effort but not the masterpiece it has been portrayed in the press and elsewhere.

Artificial Eye will release the DVD on March 8th, 2010, and the Bluray on March 8th, 2011
I certainly hope it's a misprint...

Salon.com's Andrew O'Hehir interviews Haneke.

MichaelB wrote:(the precise date is a crucial late revelation)

I know I am late, but could you or someone else possibly expound upon this; specifically, why is it crucial?

I thought it was a very good film. However, after reading that this is an allegory describing the conditions that helped usher in Fascism, I can't help but be suspicious of this. This town seemed like 'any-town', western civilization. I don't get the specificity of the claim unless it is simply the fact that the film literally takes place in pre-WWI Germany. People (group) are generally terrible everywhere, and if nothing else, this seemed to be commenting on the human condition.

The Dreyer and Bergman comparisons are apt. Additionally,

Spoiler

when they found the note on the child

, I really hoped that this wasn't going to go the Le Corbeau route. I love Le Corbeau, but that would have been an awkward shift.

aox wrote:I thought it was a very good film. However, after reading that this is an allegory describing the conditions that helped usher in Fascism, I can't help but be suspicious of this. This town seemed like 'any-town', western civilization. I don't get the specificity of the claim unless it is simply the fact that the film literally takes place in pre-WWI Germany. People (group) are generally terrible everywhere, and if nothing else, this seemed to be commenting on the human condition.

But the specificity of the claim arises from the specificity of the setting in 1913-14 Germany - why did Haneke make this explicit, when most of the film is so hard to pin down to a particular time period, and he rarely films in his native language these days? But since the information is supplied, it's impossible to ignore the implied revelation that these kids will be in their thirties and forties during the Nazi era.

Whether or not you think this is crucial to an understanding of the film as a whole is of course up to you (I agree it has resonances well beyond that), but if Haneke didn't intend us to take this information on board, why did he include it in the first place? After all, he's not a filmmaker given to doing things by accident.

MichaelB wrote:

aox wrote:I thought it was a very good film. However, after reading that this is an allegory describing the conditions that helped usher in Fascism, I can't help but be suspicious of this. This town seemed like 'any-town', western civilization. I don't get the specificity of the claim unless it is simply the fact that the film literally takes place in pre-WWI Germany. People (group) are generally terrible everywhere, and if nothing else, this seemed to be commenting on the human condition.

But the specificity of the claim arises from the specificity of the setting in 1913-14 Germany - why did Haneke make this explicit, when most of the film is so hard to pin down to a particular time period, and he rarely films in his native language these days? But since the information is supplied, it's impossible to ignore the implied revelation that these kids will be in their thirties and forties during the Nazi era.

Whether or not you think this is crucial to an understanding of the film as a whole is of course up to you (I agree it has resonances well beyond that), but if Haneke didn't intend us to take this information on board, why did he include it in the first place? After all, he's not a filmmaker given to doing things by accident.

Fair enough, Michael. Sometimes I think too much. I assumed what you stated was the reason for people writing that this film was allegorical to what arose in Germany after WWI. I simply wanted to make sure there was nothing more to the claim other than the setting and that I hadn't missed something more detailed. Thanks.

Is there anyway Criterion will be the ones to release this in the US? I don't know the contracts with all of the companies, so I realize this might be a very ignorant question.