Michael Haneke’s gloomy Palme d’Or winner The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band) relates a series of disquieting blips in a small German village just before the shake-up of World War I.
Haneke masterfully evokes this authoritarian land and period by clocking a calendar year of suspicions, affairs, harvests, Sunday masses, and acts of community trauma — the latter being broad enough to include the mutilation of a cabbage field (as an act of revenge) and a fatal fall at the local sawmill.
Lensed in an austere and often awe-inducing monochrome, the agrarian outpost under the microscope is sustained by a simple commandment: Obey thy father.
Explore the film’s beautifully designed site, read an interview with Haneke, and check out the LA Times‘ sit-down with the Austrian provocateur.
