The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band] (Haneke, 2009)

[madali]

Thats for reviewers like you =P

[fizz]

Tsk, tsk.

This after you claim in your review itself that you are turning into one of us...!

Maybe watching so many films is slowly turning me into those old critics...

[shariqq]

The actual movie makes no sense. It's only about the "aesthetics", the look of the film, the "awe" factor of many individual scenes that are firmly targeted at the artsy-fartsy crowd. The actual movie makes no sense.

I saw it start-to-end, couldn't make sense of it, and decided it needs an accompanying handbook to explain itself. This makes it either a movie too intelligent for me (I don't think so!) or too haphazard and perforated to be any good.

It's ok to leave explanations out of the plot for the viewer to discover or even imaginatively fill-in. But when this is overdone, you get something like White Ribbon, whose objective is to confuse more than intellectualize.

[animatedude]

oh...you mean it's pretentious popo for the pseudo intellectual twats?

cool.

[ak]

The only thing 'unexplained' is who exactly is carrying out the sadistic acts of violence. Everything else is pretty obvious, including the politics of the film.

I liked it fine, but think it's more subtle compared to Haneke's earlier films, which I personally find more striking. That being said, I do not believe this film's intention was to confuse or intellectualize for the sake of it.

[madali]

Shariqq, maybe marriage has dumbed you down a bit, because I dont think it needs a handbook!

*studies Fizz carefully to see the effect of marriage will have on him*

[fizz]

Fizz is doing fine, thank you (except if you ignore the fact that I just referred to myself in the third person).

The films themes are, as ak has said, pretty obvious. It is a very delicious looking film and very watchable because of it. The frustrating aspect of "who did it" is not answerable and perhaps is not meant to be answerable.

[shariqq]

Shariqq, maybe marriage has dumbed you down a bit, because I dont think it needs a handbook!

Isn't that a universal fact

I think Fizz has it right in saying that the "who did it" is not answerable, and that this is frustrating. Yes it is! For me, this is an unsolvable puzzle that pushes the rest of the movie to the back. Like a jig-saw puzzle that has a few pieces missing, because of which it cannot be solved! and I see Haneke as the snickering culprit who has stolen those pieces and stands at the by-lines watching me torture myself trying to solve it. No, I'm abandoning it till he gives me those missing pieces.

Really, I did not "get" the film. The immediate implications of the acts and the probable cause for them are deducible. Where the movie lost me completely was in the deliberate way it was done. I was constantly aware of the camera, the director sitting outside the scene ready to yell "cut" and an idea of Haneke blacking out parts of the script just to make the movie a superficial puzzle.

ok, I'm done.

[fizz]

If this made you angry at the directorial manipulations, I assume you haven't seen the truly frustrating (almost futile) Funny Games? (those who have seen it and like it will be smiling while remembering the scene in question...)

[shariqq]

No, I have not. I did not want to when it came out. Now, more the reason for me not to! I don't think Haneke is meant for me.

[ayaa1977]

If this made you angry at the directorial manipulations, I assume you haven't seen the truly frustrating (almost futile) Funny Games? (those who have seen it and like it will be smiling while remembering the scene in question...)

I know what scene you are talking about, the scene where Haneke says to the audience: You want revenge, you want payback? I could give it to you but I won't. Go fuck yourselves I won't make you feel good.

I have seen the original 1997 Funny Games but I didn't have the stomach to watch the remake, even with Naomi Watts attached to it.

[ayaa1977]

I really don't know how is this film still a mystery to any of you guys, this film has by far the most conventional and straight forward storytelling from all the Haneke film that I have seen. I was put off a little by your comments about how the perpetrator of the heinous action was unrevealed, only to hear The School Teacher spell it out by the end of the film, and you know what, I have no doubt in my mind, it adds up and he is 100% right.

Even the moral of the film is crystal clear, a malicious generation who were raised on firmly on discipline, fear, and oppression, took radical actions to take revenge from the abuser (the Doctor) the old ruling class (the Baron and his family), and the inferior (the retarded boy). The older generation saw that tendency and chose to turn the blind eye and protect them instead of stopping them, thus the future Nazis.

Anyway, it a well made film and it is aesthetically gorgeous, and that’s why I'd give it 4/5.