Review: The White Ribbon

Hey There Everyone!

Up next is the Austrian film, The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band). It was nominated for the Oscars in Best Foreign Film and best Cinematography in 2010, won the Golden Palm at the Cannes and won best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes. Written and Directed by Michael Haneke, this is definitely a movie worth seeing.

It is centered around the events concerning a small Austrian village on the eave of the First World War. It is narrated by one of the main characters, the town's school teacher. It is a fairly lengthy piece, coming in at just over 2 hours 20 minutes.

There is my only real critique, slowness. I would say that is probably one of the slowest moving movies I have ever watched. That being said I would also say it is probably one of the most interesting movies I have ever watched. Very seriously almost nothing happens. I always thought that Fitzgerald was an other who did that well.

The story is the teacher's retelling of a series of very odd events that happened to the village one year. In almost a genre bending move, the viewer somehow gets sucked into a crime mystery, and though I had no inkling that's what it would be like even half way through, afterwards I found myself and my fellow movie goers trying to piece together what exactly had happened.

The acting is pretty good overall. I wouldn't say any of the parts are particularly worthy of comment, but overall things were done well. I did not know that it was nominated for an Oscar in Cinematography prior to seeing it, and as soon as I left I voiced my opinion that it was an extremely fine piece of work. It is shot in black at white, but it is very clear. It wasn't done to make the movie feel like it was old, however it does put the viewer back into the time period very well. But that's not the main point. There are great uses of color contrast and lighting. The shadows can be very important, and they are used to perfection. Also, some of the camera angles and more specifically some of the shots are amazing. This is the first time I think I've seen something like this, and I think it worked so well here because of the slow pace of the film, that the camera would be left stationary for long periods of time. This would make some very long shots, but it really emphasized what was being done there. For example. In one scene there was a shot of a door with yelling in the background, the door opened and a boy came out, closed the door, and walked down the hallway out of shot, he then returned and reentered through the door. It makes the pace sooo slow, but man did it keep me interested.

It is also a very open film, so if you're looking for a cut and dried ending forget it. I fine piece of cinema, hardly light viewing, but definitely worth the time. I'll give this 3.5 of 4 starts. My only other complaint is that at times, especially early on, I was confused at who some of the characters were, as many were children, and all dressed alike. Oh well, forget that, and go see it.