RANT - White Ribbon

This was a tough movie to watch, mainly because of its weight, and the unremitting miserableness of the whole thing.

All events center on a small village in the north of Germany in 1913, just before the outbreak of the Great War.

It starts with a doctor falling from his horse, tripped by a wire strung across a path he rides daily, and goes downhill from there. He doesn't ride downhill daily, the movie goes downh... oh, I give up!

Everyone is pretty horrible to everyone else. There's no love shown to anyone, by anyone. Parents are very strict with their children and, as ritual punishment, tie white ribbons in their hair or around their arms, to remind the kids of the purity and innocence they were lacking.

At some points, it seems the children of the village are possessed - bereft of character or personality, but maybe that's the way it was in early 1900s Europe, and Germany in particular.

Someone scythes down the Baroness's cabbage patch after the harvest festival, because he believed the Baron's mill caused the death of his mother. The incident was treated like an assassination.

Then the Baron's son was tied up and beaten with canes, assailants unknown.

A barn burned down, again, culprit(s) unknown.

The village pastor was the nastiest piece of work imaginable, fond of publicly humiliating the children by calling out their shortcomings in front of their friends and classmates, and leading the ribbon-tying punishment.

The village doctor is cruel to all, belittling his wife and abusing his daughter.

The Baroness tells the Baron why she's leaving him, taking their kids with her. "I don't want the children to grow in this atmosphere of malice, apathy, envy and brutality."

All in all, it's a meandering tale of poor village drudgery, with the residents and their story apparently going nowhere.

All of the things that directors usually do in a film, to make that film interesting, exciting, rewarding, approachable, Michael Haneke studiously avoids. That is unforgivable, Herr Haneke.

Apparently this film is intended to provide some clues as to why Germany descended into fascism, but for me it just explained why there are no famous German comedians.