| The White Ribbon | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Michael Haneke |
| Produced by | Stefan Arndt Veit Heiduschka Michael Katz Margaret Ménégoz Andrea Occhipinti |
| Written by | Michael Haneke |
| Narrated by | Ernst Jacobi |
| Starring | Christian Friedel Ulrich Tukur Josef Bierbichler |
| Cinematography | Christian Berger |
| Editing by | Monika Willi |
| Studio | Wega Film X Filme |
| Distributed by | Filmladen (Austria) X Verleih AG (Germany) |
| Release date(s) | 21 May 2009 (Cannes) 17 September 2009 (Germany) 24 September 2009 (Austria) |
| Running time | 144 minutes |
| Country | Austria Germany |
| Language | German |
| Budget | €12 million |
The White Ribbon is a 2009 Austrian-German film, released in black and white, written and directed by Michael Haneke. The drama darkly depicts society and family in a northern German village just before World War I. According to Haneke, the film is about "the origin of every type of terrorism, be it of political or religious nature."[1]
Das weiße Band, Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (literally, "The White Ribbon, a German Children's Story") premiered at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival in May 2009 and won the Palme d'Or, followed by positive reviews and several other major awards, including the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film received two nominations for Academy Awards: 2009 Best Foreign Language Film (representing Germany) and 2009 Best Cinematography (Christian Berger).
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The memories of an unnamed elderly tailor form a parable from the distant year he worked as a village schoolteacher and met his fiancée Eva.
The setting is the fictitious Protestant village of Eichwald, Germany between July 1913 and August 1914, where the pastor, the doctor and the baron rule the roost over women, children and peasant farmers:
Mysterious things happen. A wire is stretched between two trees causing the doctor a terrible fall from his horse. The farmer's wife dies at the sawmill when rotten floorboards give way; her grieving husband later hangs himself. The baron’s young son goes missing on the day of the harvest festival and is found the following morning in the sawmill, bound and thrashed with a cane. A barn at the manor burns down. The steward's daughter has a violent dream about the midwife's handicapped son, then the boy is attacked and almost blinded. Shortly after the pastor's daughter opens his parakeet's cage with a letter opener in hand, he finds the bird cruelly impaled.
Eva arranges a meeting with her family for the schoolteacher, which concludes with her father's insistence that a marriage proposal stand the test of a year's separation.
The midwife commandeers a bicycle from the schoolteacher to go into town, claiming that she has evidence for the police given to her by her son. She is not seen again, and neither is her son. The doctor's family has also vacated the premises, leaving his practice closed. The schoolteacher's growing suspicions lead to a confrontation in the pastor's rectory, where he insinuates that the village children had prior knowledge of the local troubles. Offended, the pastor promptly threatens him, warning that he will face prison if he repeats his accusations.
The film ends at the time of the declaration of war on Serbia by Austria–Hungary, with the conclusion in church on the day of a visit from the narrator's prospective father-in-law. Disquiet remains in the village, but nothing has been revealed and no one accused.
The narrator left Eichwald, never to return.
Haneke has said the project was in development for more than ten years.[2] The initial version of the script was written as a television mini-series for the Austrian broadcaster ORF, but when no co-producer who was willing to invest in the project had been found after five years had passed, Haneke decided to put the project on hold.[3] Eventually revived as a feature film, the production was led by the Austrian company Wega Film. It was also co-produced by X Filme (Germany), Les Films Du Losange (France) and Lucky Red (Italy).[4] The film received financial support from the Austrian Film Institute, various local funds in Germany, the French CNC and the Council of Europe's film fund Eurimages.[5] It had a total budget of around 12 million Euro.[3]
More than 7000 children were interviewed during the six-month-long casting period. For most of the adult roles, Haneke selected actors with whom he had worked before and therefore knew they were suitable for the roles.[2] The role of the pastor was originally written for Ulrich Mühe, an actor who had starred in several of Haneke's past productions, but who died in 2007. Various actors were considered for replacement and eventually the part went to Burghart Klaußner, whom the director did not personally know before. Actors with significant stage experience were preferred because of the measured language of the screenplay.[6]
Filming took place between 9 June and 4 September 2008. Locations were used in Leipzig, Lübeck, Michaelisbruch (Dreetz) and Netzow (Plattenburg)[7] and Dassow (Schloss Johannstorf).[8] The choice to make the film in black and white was based partly on the resemblance to photographs of the era, but also to create a distancing effect.[2] All scenes were originally shot in color and then altered to black and white. Christian Berger, Haneke's usual director of photography, shot the film in Super 35 using a Moviecam Compact. Before filming started, Berger studied the black-and-white films Ingmar Bergman made with Sven Nykvist as cinematographer. Haneke wanted the environments to be very dark, so many indoor scenes used only practical light sources such as oil lamps and candles. In some of the darkest scenes, where the crew had been forced to add artificial lighting, extra shadows could be removed in the digital post-production which allowed for extensive retouching.[9] The team in Vienna also sharpened objects and facial expressions, and modern details were removed from the images. In the dance scene, where the camera moves in 360 degrees, tiles were added frame by frame to replace the original Eternit roofs.[6]
The film received its premiere on 21 May 2009 as an official selection at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival and had its theatrical release in Austria on 25 September 2009.[3][10] In Germany, a release in selected cinemas on 17 September was followed by wide release on 15 October.[11] American distribution by Sony Pictures Classics began 30 December 2009.[12]
With a fully German cast and setting, as well as co-production by a German company, it has been discussed whether the film should be regarded as an Austrian or German production. Haneke himself has expressed disinterest on the question: "In the Olympic Games the medal doesn't go to the country, but to the athlete." The general consensus is that it is primarily a Michael Haneke film.[13]
In Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, Julia Evers called the film "an oppressive and impressive moral painting, in which neither the audience nor the people in the village find an escape and a valve from the web of authority, hierarchy and violence. [...] Everything in The White Ribbon is true. And that is why it is so difficult to bear."[14] Markus Keuschnigg of Die Presse praised the "sober cinematography" along with the pacing of the narrative. Keuschnigg opposed any claims about the director being cold and cynical, instead hailing him as uncompromising and sincerely humanistic.[15] Die Welt's Peter Zander compared The White Ribbon to Haneke's previous films Benny's Video and Funny Games, both centering around the theme of violence. Zander concluded that while the violence in the previous films had seemed distant and constructed, The White Ribbon demonstrates how it is a part of our reality. Zander also applauded the "perfectly cast children", whom he held as "the real stars of this film".[16] "Mighty, monolithic and fearsome it stands in the cinema landscape. A horror drama, free from horror images", Christian Buß wrote in Der Spiegel, and expressed delight in how the film deviates from the conventions of contemporary German cinema: "Director Michael Haneke forces us to learn how to see again". Buß suggested references in the name of the fictitious village, "Eichwald", to the Nazi Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann and the Buchenwald concentration camp.[17] Eichwald is however a common German place name, meaning the "Oak Forest".
Critics such as Claudia Puig of USA Today praised the film's cinematography and performances while criticizing its "glacial pace" and "lack [of] the satisfaction of a resolution or catharsis."[18] Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post wrote that trying to locate the seeds of fascism in religious hypocrisy and authoritarianism is "a simplistic notion, disturbing not in its surprise or profundity, but in the sadistic trouble the filmmaker has taken to advance it."[19]
Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 85% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 123 reviews, with an average score of 7.6/10.[20]
At the Cannes Film Festival in 2009, the film received the jury's highest prize, the Palme d'Or, and the international film critics' prize, plus a special mention from the Ecumenical Jury.[10][21] This was followed in August by the FIPRESCI Grand Prix for best film of the year.[22] It won three major prizes at the 2009 European Film Awards, held in Bochum, Germany, for Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenwriter.[23] At the 67th annual Golden Globes, the film won the Best Foreign Language Film award.
In 2010, the film won the BBC Four World Cinema Award.[24]
The film was a nominee in the category Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards. Its submission as an entry of Germany rather than Austria was the source of some controversy,[25] since the Academy would have accepted it as a submission from either country. Martin Schweighofer, head of the Austrian Film Commission, expressed misgivings about the decision: "The discomfort arises because of the vague rules of the Academy. In essential functions the film is Austrian." It has been reported that the American distributor, Sony Pictures Classics, pressured Germany to submit it rather than Austria because the Academy had nominated Austrian films two years running and three in a row was considered unlikely.[26]
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