The White Ribbon

Saw The White Ribbon, a frustrating film by Michael Haneke. This one is less overtly cruel than his infamous Funny Games but it has its share of ice-cold cruelty. The film is set in a small German Village in the years before WW1, where a series of cruel pranks terrorize the populace. The village doctor's horse is tripped by a wire, a young boy is stripped and beaten into unconsciousness. I had immediate and strong suspicions about who done it but I'm not sure if I was lead to this conclusion or merely jumped there. In any case, you never really find out who the culprit is.

The film is very slow. It's shot from a child's-eye view, usually focusing on the draconian measures the adults take to keep the kids obedient. We are often left stranded, gazing uninterruptedly at an empty room while an adult goes to fetch a whip, for example, or to get coffee for a visitor. The titular white ribbon represents the purity and innocence of youth. This is of course ironic, as we see very bad things being done to and by children. Children are merely inexperienced, not innocent.

The film is narrated by the school teacher, a frog-like dude who seems to be the only person in the village who is actually innocent. He guilelessly and sincerely conducts an investigation into the pranks, seemingly unaware that everyone is lying to him to some degree. The film is not really a mystery but it is framed that way. It's a chilly but interesting film. It lacked the ratcheting tension of Cache (or I didn't feel it at any rate) but it's well-observed and reminded me of dreaded punishments meted out in my youth.

Edit: Arg, what an idiot I am! Because this is the dawn of WW1, the generation of children depicted in this film would go on to become Nazis. There's the key to unlock this film! Innocence indeed.