The White Ribbon - A German Children's Story

[Dune Panther]

The White Ribbon - A German Children's Story (Das weiße Band – Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte) is an outstanding and multiple award winning film by Austrian director Michael Haneke.

 

Set in the year prior to and leading up to the First World War, the film examines life in rural Northern Germany and the conditions that helped make the populace more radicalized. Especially the children that, after the ending of this film, some of whom in the future would had gone on to embrace extremes like National Socialism. In this sense it is quite a powerful story.

 

Director Michael Haneke remarked that, "Ideology is an absolute idea. Wherever there is oppression, humiliation, unhappiness and suffering, the ground is prepared for every kind of ideology. That's why 'The White Ribbon' is not to be understood as a film about German fascism. It is about a social climate that makes radicalism possible. That's the basic idea.” He also added, "The real issue is, at least that was my intention, to show how people under pressure become susceptible to ideology, that is, how they even create an ideology for themselves; how they absolutize an idea and then, with the help of this absolutized idea, punish those who preached the idea to them but live differently than the idea demands.”[1]

 

This modern film is in black & white, which adds a eerie sense of foreboding to the story. All of the actors are superbly cast, and the historical references and costumes are accurate to the period depicted. Available on DVD & Blu-ray (for example: https://www.amazon.com/White-Ribbon-Ulrich-Tukur/dp/B003OAL58E/), the film can also be viewed streaming here (in German language with English subtitles): https://archive.org/details/AFitaBrancaPrt.1/A+Fita+Branca+prt.1.avi.     

 

Very highly recommended.

 

[1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_weiße_Band_–_Eine_deutsche_Kindergeschichte