A scene from the tense and chilling "White Ribbon," which won the prestigious Palme D’r at the Cannes Film Festival and screens as part of the New York Film Festival. (Films du Losange/Sony Pictures Classics)
Of course, far worse atrocities will be committed in Germany in the years to come when the pre-WWI-era children begin to assert themselves in German society. Austrian director Michael Haneke submits that generation of Germans to a rough session of forensic psychoanalysis in his Palme D’Or-winning film “The White Ribbon,” which screens tonight at the 2009 New York Film Festival.
The kids are most definitely not all right in “Ribbon,” but their parents and authority figures are little better. Random acts of cruelty, often targeting children, have been committed by a person or persons unknown. First, the town doctor is seriously injured when his horse stumbles on a trip-wire, leaving the hamlet without his services for succeeding tragedies.
Next, a woman dies in the Baron’s barn, perhaps as a result of mere negligence. Then the Baron’s son is briefly abducted and severely beaten. Yet the townspeople will soon see even worse crimes.
The local schoolteacher starts to form certain suspicions about the culprits, which Haneke unsubtly foreshadows throughout the film. However, “Ribbon” is less concerned with legalistic questions of guilt than the shocking lack of empathy of the villagers, both young and old, creating the environment that gave rise to the strange crimes.
Naturally, Haneke fingers the usual suspects, like the village pastor’s distinctly Calvinistic version of Christianity and Germany’s severely regimented approach to education. However, there are also elements of class resentment at work, as well.
The Baron is deeply unpopular within the village, and his son, a true child of privilege, is an early victim. It seems like the final remnants of feudalism are breaking down in “Ribbon,” leaving a vacuum of authority, which of course will eventually be filled by the National Socialists.
Haneke, the director of “Funny Games,” hardly set out to make another horror film. Still, the gothic atmosphere created by Christian Berger’s black-and-white cinematography is quite eerie. In fact, “Ribbon” is far creepier than “The Village,” M. Night Shyamalan’s tiresome tale of township suspense. However, the most unsettling aspect of “Ribbon” is the casual cruelty it depicts through some truly cutting dialogue.
“Ribbon” is more of a work of directorial bravura than an actors’ showcase. Still, Christian Friedel and Leonie Benesch bring welcome sensitivity to the film as the well-intentioned but ineffectual schoolteacher and his innocent young romantic interest, respectively.
Haneke takes a grim, unforgiving look at human nature, finding it distinctly brutal and malevolent in “Ribbon.” While he would likely argue his vision of humanity applies universally, “Ribbon” seems particularly Teutonic in its austerity and chilly reserve.
In spite of its predictably caricatured portrayal of religion, it is a well-executed film that successfully provokes uneasy questions about man’s fundamental nature. It screens this Wednesday (Oct. 7) and Thursday (Oct. 8) as an official selection of the 2009 NYFF.
Joe Bendel blogs on jazz and cultural issues at jbspins.blogspot.com and coordinated the Jazz Foundation of America's instrument donation campaign for musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
