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| Tristán White... |
 Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 10:51 am |
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THE WHITE RIBBON ("Das weiße Band)
Directed by: Michael Haneke
Review by: Tristán Harvey E. White
Rating: (0 to *****): ***** (five stars)
Last night, London audiences were treated to the gala screening of the
Palme d'Or winner at Cannes this year, THE WHITE RIBBON, Michael
Haneke's first film since his remake of Funny Games a couple of years
ago.
It really is a treat. Occasionally reminiscent of Carl Theodor
Dreyer's wonderful 1955 film ORDET, this film is shot in beautifully
crisp black and white, a decision that, according to Haneke himself in
last night's Q&A session, the producers, distributors and "TV people"
were initially unsure about. However, Haneke always knew that this
film simply had to be in B&W... not least because the film is based in
the early 1910s, a distant period we ourselves could never visualise
in colour.
Like Britain's own Michael Winterbottom (whose films have recently
been in languages as diverse as Persian, Pashtu and Serbo-Croat),
Haneke appears to have the knack to be able to direct in any genre and
in any language, which is remarkable. Before THE WHITE RIBBON, we had
FUNNY GAMES U.S. in English, CACHÉ and LA PIANISTE in French, etc.
Haneke's own ability in English is somewhat impaired, last night
needing an interpreter for the Q&A session. THE WHITE RIBBON is in
Haneke's native German (he himself is from Austria), and the intimacy
and closeness with his characters is much more palpable than in some
of his previous films, right from the opening scene where a child is
sobbing on the staircase, crying not over his father (who is in
hospital following a riding accident) but, we discover, over the fate
of the horse; meanwhile, big sister tries to hold back her tears. In a
later scene, the pastor's wife is in semi-darkness, cutting out white
ribbon to be used to humiliate her children; her eyes are moist, but
she is too austere and too ashamed to let them show in front of her
totalitarian husband. Although I cannot be sure, I would be surprised
if Haneke would have been able to squeeze out such amazing acting from
these mainly unknown actors had he been working with an English-
speaking cast.
This is a film about a small village in the early 1900s, before the
First World War. The Baron is the landowner who employs at least half
of the villagers. The villagers need the work but secretly despise the
Baron. "Accidents" begin to happen, a child is abducted, the peasants
rebel, there's going to be a World War soon.....
Hang on, have I not just described 1900 - NOVECENTO, by Bernardo
Bertolucci?
I have indeed. And in this way, the two films have an identical
premise. However, where they are miles apart is in the characteristics
of the villagers. Other than the fact that NOVECENTO is a longer film
(5hrs 25 mins) and describes a longer period (over forty years,
compared to two or three years between 1911 and 1914 in Germany),
NOVECENTO has much more rapport between the two social classes, thanks
to the friendship between Alfredo (De Niro) and Olmo (Depardieu). It
is also a magnificent paean to Communism and the workers' movement.
However, THE WHITE RIBBON is completely the opposite in this way.
Rather than becoming Communists, we see clues as to how these German
children of 1911 will, some twenty years later, become either (a)
Nazis or (b) happy to be ruled by Nazis. It is, in a way, a pretext
for (rather than an paean to) right-wing fascism.
The fact that two similar premises and environs and social structures
can create two political mindsets that are so completely different
speaks volumes about Germany, and I think this is what Haneke is
getting at, although Haneke will never entirely tell you what he is
getting at: he likes people to think, to work things out for
themselves. As with CACHÉ, some of the storylines are never explained,
but this really does not matter. THE WHITE RIBBON is a superb story,
and any attempt to explain too much of the story in the dénouement
would be making life too easy for the viewer. Haneke himself has gone
on record in a recent article for Der Spiegel to say that he likes his
viewers to feel as though they have been raped at the end of a movie.
In fact, as the audience at last night's Gala gave the film and its
director an ovation as the credits rolled up, we ended up with more
questions than answers, and all the more enriched from it. Who cares
if not all our questions are answered? How often are they answered in
real life?
The only question we have kind of had answered for us are about why
Germans acted like they did in the 1930s as Hitler rose to power. Why
they were so at ease with the Nazi totalitarian regime. Why they
became Nazis themselves. Here we see the kids interrogated by police,
kids punched and caned by their authoritarian parents, physical and in
one case even sexual abuse. We see the effect it has on their kids,
the cruelty begin to rub off, the violence beginning to be evident. In
one case, a young girl butchers her father's budgerigar with a pair of
scissors. In another, a child with Down syndrome, Karli, is tortured
by unseen perpetrators - although it is strongly hinted that they are
probably the other children in the village. This marginalisation of
the village "idiot" may seem incidental, but when we consider the
Nazi's later interpretation of Eugenics, we see in this scene a
macabre prognostication of the future.
Could this finally be Haneke's year? Surely THE WHITE RIBBON will be
nominated for a foreign language Oscar (Germany have thankfully
submitted this film as the German representative - at least one
country appears to have got it right, following Spain's decision not
to send BROKEN EMBRACES and Greece's even more bizarre decision not to
send this year's Un Certain Régard winner DOGTOOTH, another film to
receive rave reviews at this year's London Film Festival and to which
we were treated last week).
Haneke surely deserves it, having been cruelly disqualified from
presenting CACHÉ in 2005 because, like Italy's PRIVATE the year
before, it was using a language that was not native to the nominating
country of production (French in the case of Austrian film CACHÉ, and
Arabic and Hebrew in the case of Italian film PRIVATE). Largely
because of these two cases, the Academy changed their regulations.
Were Haneke today allowed to present CACHÉ at the Academy, one can be
fairly sure that he would walk away with the top award. I imagine that
the odds should be quite high on Haneke finally getting his deserved
bald gold statuette in LA early next year.
Or are they? We've had a German or Austrian film nominated almost
every year in recent years. In 2008 another Austrian director, Stefan
Ruzowitzky, picked up the Oscar for DIE FÄLSCHER (THE COUNTERFEITERS).
In 2007, German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck famously won
with DAS LEBEN DER ANDEREN (THE LIFE OF OTHERS). In 2002 Germany also
won with NIRGENDWO IN AFRIKA. So whilst this is a great moment for
Germanic cinema, is it conceivable that the Academy, worried about
favouring cinema from this part of Europe in recent years, could
indeed snub Haneke once again? Not only have we had these three
winners during this decade, but Germany has also had nominated DER
BAADER MEINHOF KOMPLEX, SOPHIE SCHOLL and, least we forget, the
magisterial DOWNFALL - DER UNTERGANG.
My fingers are crossed for Michael Haneke, and that he will not have
to wait too much longer for Oscar success.
And the same must be said for the other Michael. Mr Michael
Winterbottom, that is.
Reviewer: Tristán White
***********************************************************************
144 minutes.
THE WHITE RIBBON goes on general release in the UK on 13 November
2009, and in the United States on 30 December 2009. |
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