White Ribbon Review

When the wealthy, landowning baron of the tiny village of northern Germany town, Eichwald, rises in church to announce to the congregation that an evil person lives secretly amongst them, the accusation is both alarming and relieving. A heinous prank has left the town doctor severely injured and an unknown offender has recently kidnapped the baron's young son, Sigi, violently thrashed him to the point of bleeding, and left him hanging upside down and naked in a mill. To know that a person would be capable of such ill will is a horror, but the hope that a careful investigation might discover and eradicate the culprit and restoring the town to peace is a relieving prospect.

The White Ribbon, directed by Michael Haneke, an Austrian director, is a study of power and oppression. People in power include the pastor, the baron, and the town doctor. Naturally, many of them are shaken when their control is taken away by the incidents of violence. Caught in the middle is a young schoolteacher. He narrates the story years later. Unlike a lot of voiceover narration, his narration is useful. Without it, the film might have become hopelessly lost among the various characters. Set in 1913, on the eve of the First World War I, the film portrays of societal violence. A war-stained empire was primed to proudly enter what would be the bloodiest conflict in human history. Their children would grow-up to become the generation of the Nazis.

Specifically, however, The White Ribbon is a depiction of individual’s sins and theirs abilities to expand into community, national, and global evils. The baron describes one sinful criminal and the community believes him. I’m suspecting the unlikeliest of suspects, a polite young school teacher, who is seen fishing in the river after the doctor's injury and who is seen whipping a horse immediately after the baron's son is discovered to have been thrashed. An additional reason to suspect him is the reason that the community would likely suspect him...