Death in the Rebirth of Black and White

THE WHITE RIBBON

Michael Haneke

Germany

2009

 

A 2009 film shot in black and white will nevertheless catch any film enthusiast’s attention. Overflowing with classic town-pinning memories from half a century ago whose beauty is as faultless as the sparkling chiaroscuro in the cinematography, “The White Ribbon” is an intelligent narrative about the mysteries of life that creep stealthily in our human psyche and soul. Innocence is at the focal point of the film where a matrix of dreadful secrets,

fretting apathy, and inevitable unkindness converge and rationalize the magnitude of innocence and its alarming decadence. Black and white cinematography has just been so awesome and stunning as it covers the atmosphere of the film in a shadow of mist that spells out the word austere in every single frame of this brave German film, who finally is over with Adolf Hitler movies. It doesn’t end with that yet, for the most captivating aspect of the film is that the genre dynamics of “The White Ribbon” is just so breathtaking that you can describe it as something as a deep human mystery-drama, which is purely dramatic but structured in a thriller-horror template. The cinematic amalgam is so exceptional I don’t think I have seen anything like this yet.

There is no clear main character in the film. Even the young actor you can see on the poster is not the main character, but as far as you consider the narrator as the main character of the film, then that is going to be the school teacher. A lot of weird events have been baffling a small protestant town, the injury of the town doctor who fell from his horse after being tripped by an almost invisible wire tied around two trees, the death a local farmer’s wife after an accident in the rice mill, the kidnap and abuse of the Baron’s son, and of the town’s midwife son, and the most startling of these all is that no one could point out who is behind these disturbing incidences. The school teacher though has construed that the children of the town have something to do with these occurrences. The film ends with no answer and as it leaves the audiences questioning, the story for the greatest human mystery of sympathy and warmth just started—the Great World War.

 

At first, I am very frustrated that I will never know who the criminal is actually. But then I realize that it doesn’t matter anymore because of one simple reason that a mystery is a mystery.  The film end with the start of the 1st World War, which is one of the biggest vagueness that ever happened in land when it comes to human apathy and power indifference resulting to political sabotage and the ultimate destruction of humanity through wars. The children in the film, especially the ones in their teenage years—Anni, Klara, and Martin, their transition from their sweet innocence symbolized by the white ribbon being tied to their arms, hair, etc (which is the title of the film) to the phase of adulthood is the corresponding diegetic story where they will soon experience the mysteries the film is talking about which are revenge, envy, blame, anger, resentment, cruelty, and viciousness. These children are presented as curious and mysterious in the film, what makes “The White Ribbon” foxier and restrained is that the adults are presented almost as curious as the children, and almost equally have the weird incidences in their town at their back, or even under their nose.  Any answers are not necessary in this beautifully choreographed and photographed pre-war drama for answers are never enough for humans. At the beginning of the film, the school teacher says that he is not totally sure about what happened in their town, some he only heard from folks. Stories being woven to make sense, surmises created with gripping results, all going to the boat of unknown and unanswered, of mystery, are what the film is all about.

Death has also been made unabashed by director Michael Haneke, especially in the guiltless eyes of children. There is a scene where the youngest boy of the town doctor asks her older sister—Anni what is death, when does it happen, to whom it happens, and if it will happen to their father, her, and him. The innocent asking another innocent forced not to be, or rather thought to be not innocent anymore but actually is, is a scene overflowing with absolute abstraction of the nostalgic remembering of our childhood when we use to question and wonder, again—life’s mysteries. The five year old asking the fourteen year old about a query even the world’s most brilliant philosophers, philanthropists, and scientists, couldn’t completely answer, marks a real obligation for the fourteen year-old Anni to be responsible for her kid brother, and at the same time to her own self, that after the words she used to satisfy her younger brother’s curiosity, she should understand every single one of them relative to the world of the adults. Another scene where the school teacher sees Martin standing at the edge of the bridge pays great inquisitiveness about death. The school teacher is very worried shouting and running at the boy’s disposal, trying to save him from any horrible accident but even gets more worried when Martin says that he is giving God a chance to kill him. Martin is the teenage boy in the poster of the movie. The most disturbed, at least by how he looks with his bulging eyes and huge eye bags, and with his creepy and slow poked walking, Martin, has been forced by his pastor Father about what he does that makes him so weary, bothered, and unusual. The boy confessed about his sensual awakenings and interests—and I am not so sure though if this what Haneke thinks as the ultimate reason or point from a child’s innocence is corrupted and causes all the attritions in human morality and kindness. 

 

“The White Ribbon” is a poignant picture of a timeless human experience with a very successful historical reference and beautiful revival of the black and white, pre-war, and European cinema. I never quite seen a movie like this, so unrevealing for the characters yet so revealing for its audiences, and from that standpoint I respect this deep and unusual film. The narration in the film by the aged voice of the school teacher is sweeping, complementing the old atmosphere of the early 20^th century German town, and the age-old familiarity of gossips, ambiguities, and human imperfections. The powerful ending in the film as it bitterly welcomes the World War rivets the abyss to engulf the painful memories of villagers, for whatever assumptions that the next generation of mankind will have more throbbing memories or what, this human indifference will thrive our planet as we human beings thrive on it, and this is a vicious cycle, unfortunately. But if there are films recognizing this unbelievable truth (though still relative) then it must not be that bad at all.