Synopsis
Nominated for two Academy Awards:
Cinematography, Foreign Language Film

“Haneke, whose The Piano Teacher and Caché (Hidden) earned art-house acclaim, shoots the darkest misbehavior in the dramatic monochromes of European masters like Carl Dreyer and Robert Bresson. [THE WHITE RIBBON] is among the most luminous and painterly of black-and-white films, but what's portrayed will shock or numb you. Spare and unsparing, this Cannes prizewinner is also, in the serene pursuit of its corrosive vision, a thrilling corrective to standard holiday fare. Other movies don't even consider the enormity of a society's power to crush its people's best instincts. This one says: Don't look away. Look here.”—Richard Corliss, Time



”Don't let anyone tell you too much about this spellbinder from Austrian writer-director Michael Haneke (Caché). Shot in stunning black-and-white by the gifted Christian Berger, The White Ribbon is a toxic blossom of images that burn into your memory. In pre-World War I Germany, a farm village is beset by accidents that may not be accidents. The Baron (Ulrich Tukur) dominates the village economy, just as the Pastor (Burghart Klaussner) holds brutal sway over the morality of the villagers and their families. It's on the faces of the children that Haneke tells his story of corruption and the grip of fascism. This haunting film never pushes itself on you. It trusts you to suss out the horror that lies beneath the veneer of innocence. You'll be knocked for a loop.”—Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

After the gleaming contemporary surfaces of CACHE (TFF 2005) and THE PIANO TEACHER, Michael Haneke turns his caustic eye on an obscure German farming village just before World War I. The population operates on the same notions of class, hierarchy and morality that have reigned for a thousand years, until sudden mysterious acts of cruelty and violence occur. The town’s pastor, baron and doctor do their best to adjust, but, like increasingly desperate heroes in a Kafka story, are too embedded in the status quo to stem the tide. Inexorably, the poison seeps into the fabric of everyday life, foreshadowing the horrific catastrophes that soon will redefine German identity. Haneke’s tale, winner of the Palme d’Or and two other Cannes awards, is considerably deeper than the typical morally superior condemnation of evil Germans. The scenes of carriage rides, church dances, family dinners and courting rituals provide a heartbreaking lyricism, mourning a world vanishing before our eyes. –Larry Gross, 2009 Telluride Film Festival