THE WHITE RIBBON
Directed by Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke is not a filmmaker with whom I have a great affinity. I have been left cold and distinctly unimpressed by every film of his I have seen. Every film of his up until THE WHITE RIBBON, anyway, as this is an unimpeachable masterpiece. Set in a small German village in 1913, THE WHITE RIBBON is a coruscating, and devastating look at how a community can begin to fall apart, even when nobody seems to understand why. Absent of most of Haneke’s usual directorial leitmotifs, THE WHITE RIBBON is comfortably his best film, and far more troubling than the amateur theatrics of FUNNY GAMES or the bourgeois guilt of HIDDEN ever managed to be. The austerity of the black and white photography fits in perfectly with the puritan morals being picked apart by Haneke. It’s also hard not to equate the small brood of eerie, blonde, repressed children with the Aryan ideal that would become prominent in German society right around the time that they would reach adulthood.
No comments:
Post a Comment