Rating: 10/10

Writer/Director: Michael Haneke
Cast: Christian Friedel

Michael Haneke’s latest film is yet another installment in his large treatise on the capability of humanity to commit acts of evil. His earlier films (THE PIANO TEACHER in particular) seek to show the depravity of human desire while Cache endeavored to show the psychological terror that people can force upon one another. THE WHITE RIBBON is an evolution of each, blending the physical and mental torture into one of 2009’s darkest films.

THE WHITE RIBBON chronicles a short period just before the outbreak of World War I in a small German town. The film’s first act consists of a drawn out introduction of the movie’s key players. One of the primary figures is the town’s school teacher, who provides the sole evidence of decency throughout the picture. Other key characters include the town pastor, whose children are the major suspects of the crimes throughout the movie, and the wealthy estate owner who oscillates between a worshiped benefactor and a cruel capitalist. As it turns out, the children in the film appear to be the most devious and violent of all the characters, as Haneke manipulates the innocence of childhood into a semblance of pure evil.

In fact, the director’s greatest triumph is his ability to craft an environment of violence with very little empirical evidence of any. Very little harm is done in front of the audience’s eyes and very few explicit explanations of these acts are given. The filmmaker works to keep the tension increasing throughout the picture, and by the time the credits roll, the audience will have white knuckles from gripping the tangible reality of their nearest armrest. This clenching is only done in order to avoid delving too deeply into Haneke’s world of depravity and human villainy.

Perhaps the most evident thematic element throughout the film comes into play when the children of the town’s pastor are caught in a lie, which comes about due to their truancy from the family’s routine dinner time. Their lack of an explanation provides the father with little choice but to provide a severe beating to the children, which still doesn’t deliver an explicit explanation for their whereabouts. Audiences are left to infer what acts these children committed in their absence, but the director never lets the audience forget them by having the father tie a white ribbon around the arms of the eldest children. This external semblance of their purity is a constant reminder and a stark contrast to their misdeeds that occur off screen.

This is easily one of 2009’s most memorable films. Without a doubt THE WHITE RIBBON will be talked about for years to come. Decades from now, film students will pick this film’s thematic elements apart piece by piece, searching for each metaphor’s true meaning. Until then, however, it will find a place in the minds (not the hearts) of film lovers everywhere.