The White Ribbon is a 2009 Austrian-German film, released in black and white, written and directed by
Michael HanekeMichael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
. The drama darkly depicts society and family in a northern
GermanThe German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
village just before
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. According to Haneke, the film is about "the origin of every type of terrorism, be it of political or religious nature."
Das weiße Band, Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (literally, "The White Ribbon, a German Children's Story") premiered at the
62nd Cannes Film FestivalThe 62nd annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 13 to May 24, 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury. It was announced on March 19, 2009, that Pixar's film Up would open the festival...
in May 2009 and won the
Palme d'OrThe Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
, followed by positive reviews and several other major awards, including the
2010 Golden Globe AwardThe 67th Golden Globe Awards was telecasted live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on Sunday, January 17, 2010 by NBC, from 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM and 8:00PM – 11:00 PM . The ceremonies were hosted by Ricky Gervais, and were broadcast live for the first time.Nominations were...
for
Best Foreign Language FilmThe Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the awards presented at the Golden Globes, an American film awards ceremony.Until 1986, it was known as the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film, meaning that any non-American film could be honoured...
. The film received two nominations for
Academy AwardsThe 82nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2009 and took place March 7, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST. The ceremony was scheduled well after...
:
2009 Best Foreign Language FilmThe Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
(representing Germany) and
2009 Best CinematographyThe Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...
(
Christian BergerChristian Berger is an Austrian cinematographer. He is mostly known for his work with Michael Haneke. In February 2010, Berger was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on The White Ribbon at the 82nd Academy Awards...
).
Plot
The memories of an unnamed elderly tailor form a
parableA parable is a succinct story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive principles, or lessons, or a normative principle. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human...
from the distant year he worked as a village schoolteacher and met his fiancée Eva.
The setting is the fictitious Protestant village of Eichwald,
GermanyThe German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
between July 1913 and August 1914, where the pastor, the doctor and the
baronBaron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
rule the roost over women, children and peasant farmers:
- The puritanical pastor leads confirmation classes and gives his pubescent children a guilty conscience over trivial offenses. He has them wear white ribbons as a reminder of the innocence and purity from which they have strayed. When his son confesses to impure touching, the pastor has the boy’s hands tied to the bed frame.
- The doctor, a widower, treats the village children kindly but sexually humiliates his housekeeper (the local midwife) and takes advantage of his teenage daughter at night.
- The baron, who is the lord of the manor, underwrites harvest festivities for the villagers, many of whom are the immigrant workers in his employ. He may summarily dismiss his twins' nanny Eva for no apparent reason yet defend the integrity of the farmer whose son has taken his revenge on the baron by destroying the Baron's field of cabbages.
Mysterious things happen. A wire is stretched between two trees causing the doctor a terrible fall from his horse. The farmer's wife dies at the sawmill when rotten floorboards give way; her grieving husband later hangs himself. The baron’s young son goes missing on the day of the harvest festival and is found the following morning in the sawmill, bound and thrashed with a cane. A barn at the manor burns down. The steward's daughter has a violent dream about the midwife's handicapped son, then the boy is attacked and almost blinded. Shortly after the pastor's daughter opens his
parakeetParakeet is a term for any one of a large number of unrelated small to medium sized species of parrot, that generally have long tail feathers...
's cage with a letter opener in hand, he finds the bird cruelly impaled.
Eva arranges a meeting with her family for the schoolteacher, which concludes with her father's insistence that a marriage proposal stand the test of a year's separation.
The midwife commandeers a bicycle from the schoolteacher to go into town, claiming that she has evidence for the police given to her by her son. She is not seen again, and neither is her son. The doctor's family has also vacated the premises, leaving his practice closed. The schoolteacher's growing suspicions lead to a confrontation in the pastor's
rectoryA rectory is the residence, or former residence, of a rector, most often a Christian cleric, but in some cases an academic rector or other person with that title...
, where he insinuates that the village children had prior knowledge of the local troubles. Offended, the pastor promptly threatens him, warning that he will face prison if he repeats his accusations.
The film ends at the time of the
declaration of warWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
on
SerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
by Austria–Hungary, with the conclusion in church on the day of a visit from the narrator's prospective father-in-law. Disquiet remains in the village, but nothing has been revealed and no one accused.
The narrator left Eichwald, never to return.
Cast
- Christian Friedel as the school teacher
- Ernst Jacobi
Ernst Jacobi is a German film and television actor.-Selected filmography:*Derrick - Season 2, Episode 6: "Paddenberg" -External links:*...
as narrator (the school teacher many years later)
- Leonie Benesch as Eva, nanny to the baron and baroness's twin babies
- Ulrich Tukur
Ulrich Tukur is a German actor and musician.-Biography:Tukur spent his youth near Hanover where he finished his final secondary-school examinations in 1977. He also achieved a high school degree in Boston during an exchange of students where he met his first wife, Amber Wood. With her, he had two...
as the baron
- Ursina Lardi
Ursina Lardi is a Swiss actress, best known for playing the baroness, Marie-Louise in The White Ribbon.Lardi studied acting at the Academy of Performing Arts Ernst Busch in Berlin and played at various theatres in Germany....
as the baroness, Marie-Louise
- Fion Mutert as Sigmund, their oldest son
- Michael Kranz as Sigmund's tutor
- Burghart Klaußner
Burghart Klaußner is a German film actor. He has appeared in 50 films since 1983.-Selected filmography:* The Riddle of the Sands * Just a Matter of Duty * Good Bye Lenin! * The Edukators...
as the pastor
- Steffi Kühnert as Anna, the pastor's wife
- Maria-Victoria Dragus as Klara, their oldest daughter
- Leonard Proxauf
Leonard Proxauf is an Austrian actor, best known for his role as Martin in the film The White Ribbon.-Biography:...
as Martin, their oldest son
- Levin Henning, as Adolf
- Johanna Busse, as Margarete
- Thibault Sérié, as Gustav
- Josef Bierbichler
-Awards:* Adolf Grimme Award , best performance in the ZDF TV film Freier Fall* Adolf Grimme Award , best performance in Hierankl, along with Johanna Wokalek, Barbara Sukowa and Peter Simonischek* Theaterpreis Berlin -External links:...
as the baron's steward
- Gabriela Maria Schmeide as Emma, his wife
- Janina Fautz as Erna, their daughter
- Enno Trebs as Georg
- Theo Trebs
Theo Trebs is a German actor, known for his role as Ferdinand in the film, The White Ribbon - Biography :Theo Trebs lives in a family with five children. His mother, Dorothea Trebs, is a talent agent and his siblings Enno Trebs, Lilli Trebs, Nele Trebs and Pepe Trebs are also young German actors...
as Ferdinand
- Rainer Bock
Rainer Bock is a German actor. Bock was born in Kiel. He had already worked as a stage actor for about 25 years, beginning in 1982, in Kiel, at the National Theatre Mannheim, the Staatstheater Stuttgart, and at the Bavarian State Theatre in Munich, before his film work increased by the end of the...
as the doctor
- Roxane Duran as Anna, the doctor's daughter
- Susanne Lothar
Susanne Lothar is a German actress.Lothar studied at the Schauspiel an der Hochschule für Theater und Musik in Hamburg...
as the midwife
- Eddy Grahl as Karli, her son
- Branko Samarovski as a peasant
- Birgit Minichmayr
Birgit Minichmayr is an Austrian actress and singer born in Linz, Austria. Birgit Minichmayr studied drama at the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna.-Career:...
as Frieda
- Aaron Denkel as Kurti
- Detlev Buck
Detlev Buck is a German film director and actor.-Life and work:From his first short film at the age of 21 in 1982, Erst die Arbeit und dann?, he has remained one of the most important filmmakers working in Germany...
as Eva's father
- Carmen-Maja Antoni, as the washer of corpses
Production
Haneke has said the project was in development for more than ten years. The initial version of the script was written as a television mini-series for the Austrian broadcaster
ORFÖsterreichischer Rundfunk, ORF, is the Austrian national public service broadcaster.Funded from a combination of a television licence fees and revenue from limited on-air advertising, ORF is the dominant player in the Austrian broadcast media...
, but when no co-producer who was willing to invest in the project had been found after five years had passed, Haneke decided to put the project on hold.
Eventually revived as a feature film, the production was led by the Austrian company Wega Film. It was also co-produced by X Filme (Germany), Les Films Du Losange (France) and Lucky Red (Italy). The film received financial support from the Austrian Film Institute, various local funds in Germany, the French CNC and the
Council of EuropeThe Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
's film fund
EurimagesEurimages is the Council of Europe fund for the co-production, distribution, exhibition and digitisation of European cinematographic works. It aims to promote the European film industry by encouraging the production and distribution of films and fostering co-operation between professionals....
. It had a total budget of around 12 million
EuroThe euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
.
More than 7000 children were interviewed during the six-month-long casting period. For most of the adult roles, Haneke selected actors with whom he had worked before and therefore knew they were suitable for the roles. The role of the pastor was originally written for
Ulrich MüheFriedrich Hans Ulrich Mühe was a German film, television and theatre actor. He played the role of Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in the Oscar-winning film Das Leben der Anderen , for which he received the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Gold, at Germany's most prestigious film...
, an actor who had starred in several of Haneke's past productions, but who died in 2007. Various actors were considered for replacement and eventually the part went to
Burghart KlaußnerBurghart Klaußner is a German film actor. He has appeared in 50 films since 1983.-Selected filmography:* The Riddle of the Sands * Just a Matter of Duty * Good Bye Lenin! * The Edukators...
, whom the director did not personally know before. Actors with significant stage experience were preferred because of the measured language of the screenplay.
Filming took place between 9 June and 4 September 2008. Locations were used in
LeipzigLeipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
,
LübeckThe Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
, Michaelisbruch (
DreetzDreetz is a municipality in the Ostprignitz-Ruppin district, in Brandenburg, Germany....
) and Netzow (
PlattenburgPlattenburg is a municipality in the Prignitz district, in Brandenburg, Germany....
) and
DassowDassow is a town in the Nordwestmecklenburg district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It is situated on a bay of the Baltic Sea, 20 km east of Lübeck....
(Schloss Johannstorf). The choice to make the film in black and white was based partly on the resemblance to photographs of the era, but also to create a distancing effect. All scenes were originally shot in color and then altered to black and white.
Christian BergerChristian Berger is an Austrian cinematographer. He is mostly known for his work with Michael Haneke. In February 2010, Berger was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on The White Ribbon at the 82nd Academy Awards...
, Haneke's usual director of photography, shot the film in Super 35 using a
Moviecam CompactMoviecam Compact is a movie camera product line created by Moviecam in 1990, developed by Fritz Gabriel Bauer with the improvements after developed Moviecam SuperAmerica. Its potential applications are widespread, and it is regularly used on music videos, for commercials, in second unit work on...
. Before filming started, Berger studied the black-and-white films
Ingmar BergmanErnst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
made with
Sven NykvistSven Vilhem Nykvist was a Swedish cinematographer. He worked on over 120 films, but is known especially for his work with director Ingmar Bergman...
as cinematographer. Haneke wanted the environments to be very dark, so many indoor scenes used only practical light sources such as oil lamps and candles. In some of the darkest scenes, where the crew had been forced to add artificial lighting, extra shadows could be removed in the digital post-production which allowed for extensive
retouchingPhoto manipulation is the application of image editing techniques to photographs in order to create an illusion or deception , through analog or digital means.- Types of digital photo manipulation :...
. The team in Vienna also sharpened objects and facial expressions, and modern details were removed from the images. In the dance scene, where the camera moves in 360 degrees, tiles were added frame by frame to replace the original Eternit roofs.
Release
The film received its premiere on 21 May 2009 as an official selection at the
62nd Cannes Film FestivalThe 62nd annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 13 to May 24, 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury. It was announced on March 19, 2009, that Pixar's film Up would open the festival...
and had its theatrical release in Austria on 25 September 2009. In Germany, a release in selected cinemas on 17 September was followed by wide release on 15 October. American distribution by
Sony Pictures ClassicsSony Pictures Classics is an art-house film division of Sony Pictures Entertainment founded in December 1991 that distributes, produces and acquires specialty films from the United States and around the world. Its co-presidents are Michael Barker and Tom Bernard...
began 30 December 2009.
With a fully German cast and setting, as well as co-production by a German company, it has been discussed whether the film should be regarded as an Austrian or German production. Haneke himself has expressed disinterest on the question: "In the
Olympic GamesThe Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
the medal doesn't go to the country, but to the athlete." The general consensus is that it is primarily a Michael Haneke film.
Critical response
In Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, Julia Evers called the film "an oppressive and impressive moral painting, in which neither the audience nor the people in the village find an escape and a valve from the web of authority, hierarchy and violence. [...] Everything in The White Ribbon is true. And that is why it is so difficult to bear." Markus Keuschnigg of
Die PresseDie Presse is an Austrian daily newspaper based in Vienna. It was founded in 1946 by World War II resistance fighter Ernst Molden and stands in tradition of the Viennese newspapers "Die Presse" and "Neue Freie Presse" . The paper covers general news topics...
praised the "sober cinematography" along with the pacing of the narrative. Keuschnigg opposed any claims about the director being cold and cynical, instead hailing him as uncompromising and sincerely humanistic.
Die WeltDie Welt is a German national daily newspaper published by the Axel Springer AG company.It was founded in Hamburg in 1946 by the British occupying forces, aiming to provide a "quality newspaper" modelled on The Times...
s Peter Zander compared The White Ribbon to Haneke's previous films
Benny's VideoBenny's Video is a 1992 horror-of-personality film directed by the Austrian Michael Haneke. The plot of the film centers on Benny , a teenager who views much of his life as distilled through video images, and his well-to-do parents Anna and Georg , who enable Benny's focus on video cameras and...
and Funny Games, both centering around the theme of violence. Zander concluded that while the violence in the previous films had seemed distant and constructed, The White Ribbon demonstrates how it is a part of our reality. Zander also applauded the "perfectly cast children", whom he held as "the real stars of this film". "Mighty, monolithic and fearsome it stands in the cinema landscape. A horror drama, free from horror images", Christian Buß wrote in
Der SpiegelDer Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
, and expressed delight in how the film deviates from the conventions of contemporary German cinema: "Director Michael Haneke forces us to learn how to see again". Buß suggested references in the name of the fictitious village, "Eichwald", to the Nazi
ObersturmbannführerObersturmbannführer was a paramilitary Nazi Party rank used by both the SA and the SS. It was created in May 1933 to fill the need for an additional field grade officer rank above Sturmbannführer as the SA expanded. It became an SS rank at the same time...
Adolf EichmannAdolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
and the
Buchenwald concentration campBuchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...
. Eichwald is however a common German place name, meaning the "Oak Forest".
Critics such as Claudia Puig of USA Today praised the film's cinematography and performances while criticizing its "glacial pace" and "lack [of] the satisfaction of a resolution or catharsis." Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post wrote that trying to locate the seeds of fascism in religious hypocrisy and authoritarianism is "a simplistic notion, disturbing not in its surprise or profundity, but in the sadistic trouble the filmmaker has taken to advance it."
Review aggregate
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that 85% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 123 reviews, with an average score of 7.6/10.
Accolades and awards
At the
Cannes Film FestivalThe Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
in 2009, the film received the jury's highest prize, the
Palme d'OrThe Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
, and the
international film critics'The International Federation of Film Critics is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world for "the promotion and development of film culture and for the safeguarding of professional interests." It was founded in June 1930 in...
prize, plus a special mention from the
Ecumenical JuryThe Prize of the Ecumenical Jury is an independent film award for feature films at the Cannes Film Festival since 1974. The Ecumenical Jury is one of three juries at the Cannes Film Festival, along with the official jury and the FIPRESCI jury. The award was created by Christian film makers, film...
. This was followed in August by the FIPRESCI Grand Prix for best film of the year. It won three major prizes at the 2009 European Film Awards, held in
BochumBochum is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany. It is located in the Ruhr area and is surrounded by the cities of Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Herne, Castrop-Rauxel, Dortmund, Witten and Hattingen.-History:...
, Germany, for Best Film,
Best Director-Winners and nominees:*1988**Wim Wenders - Wings of Desire **Terence Davies - Distant Voices, Still Lives**Louis Malle - Goodbye Children **Manoel de Oliveira - The Cannibals ...
and Best Screenwriter. At the 67th annual Golden Globes, the film won the Best Foreign Language Film award.
In 2010, the film won the BBC Four World Cinema Award.
The film was a nominee in the category
Best Foreign Language FilmThe Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
at the
82nd Academy AwardsThe 82nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2009 and took place March 7, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST. The ceremony was scheduled well after...
. Its submission as an
entry of Germany rather than Austria was the source of some controversy, since the Academy would have accepted it as a submission from either country. Martin Schweighofer, head of the
Austrian Film CommissionThe Austrian Film Commission was founded in 1986 and is an organisation financed by public funds with the aim of promoting Austrian film abroad.-Activities:...
, expressed misgivings about the decision: "The discomfort arises because of the vague rules of the Academy. In essential functions the film is Austrian." It has been reported that the American distributor,
Sony Pictures ClassicsSony Pictures Classics is an art-house film division of Sony Pictures Entertainment founded in December 1991 that distributes, produces and acquires specialty films from the United States and around the world. Its co-presidents are Michael Barker and Tom Bernard...
, pressured Germany to submit it rather than Austria because the Academy had nominated Austrian films two years running and three in a row was considered unlikely.
External links