'The White ribbon' - Michael Haneke - "It feels like a classic even as you are watching it for the first time"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUUuD0oh81o&feature=channel

the quote above is from Scott Foundas.

I am disappointed it wasn't Haneke's quote.

well,Haneke's quote (before a screening of the movie) :" i wish you all a disturbing viewing"

maybe that's because it takes place in the early 20th century and is in black and white

Anthony Lane's profile was revolting.

"i would just like to point out that i have been otm while making this movie"

that anthony lane profile was the worst thing ever

anthony lane profile was swell, i thought

the quote above is from Scott Foundas.

― Zeno, Monday, October 5, 2009 7:38 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

scott foundas is on record as pro-raping-and-drugging-13-year-olds.

this film kind of sucks.

" i wish you all a disturbing viewing"

yeah, well.

this basically means the film is a series of Bad Things:

-a dad molests his 14-y-o girl (foundas didn't weigh in on this)
-a dad tells his son if he masturbates HE WILL DIE
-a dad kills himself FOR SOME REASON
-a retarded kid gets beat up BY PERSONS UNKNOWN
-World War One breaks out

What was wrong with the Anthony Lane profile? Good at explaining where Haneke's preoccupations might have come from - funny and empathetic re: the man himself. And I don't even like the guy's movies.

Too slavish.

any1 want 2 copy & paste?

To be fair, I'd just read the equally obsequious profile on Richard Holbrooke the week before, in which George Packer expresses astonishment every other column at Holbrooke's "stunning" intelligence when to my eyes he sounded like any mid-level apparatchik with an ego.

why did something you read a week before affect how you read the Haneke piece?

ha i mean effect

no, you had it right the first time

you meant "Affleck"

:/ i'm not so good in the morning

i mean AFLACK

this is very good.

why did something you read a week before affect how you read the Haneke piece?

Both pieces ran in the same magazine and were essentially puff.

it's an "impressive piece of filmmaking" but MH's thesis and view of the world (as consisting entirely of complete bastards) did not win me over.

a lot more could have been made of the narrator: do we trust him?

xpost

here's the trailer:

http://twitchfilm.net/news/2009/08/trailer-arrives-for-hanekes-palme-dor-winning-the-white-ribbon.php

some viewers compared it to Dreyer and Bergman. it certainly looks like a film made by them.
and it looks amazing.

"MH's thesis and view of the world (as consisting entirely of complete bastards)"

so you don't like Kubrik as well?

MH's characters are far worse. most of kubrick's characters are not bad people. also kubrick had jokes.

with the thesis – that this film illuminates nazism – is it MH's, or just the narrator's? i think this is the critical question.

I dunno that Haneke's authorial POV is that people are complete bastards. Rather that they're selfish and self-deluding. And woefully underprepared for the worst that might happen to them. And that they'd be pitiable if they weren't so stupid, tedious and dishonest.

Not a vast improvement on "complete bastards", but still...

The problem with Haneke to me is that he's not saying "we are complete bastards" but "y'all are complete bastards". (German for "y'all are" is "ihr seid".)

What is the point of Kubrick's films having jokes if they were unfunny ones -- never been able to make it through Dr Strangelove

Is this playing in London yet? I know the nft are doing a re-screening of all his films which will give me an opportunity to see the one/two films of his I haven't (The Trial).

Can't wait for this. As long as ppl keeping writing 'The problem with Haneke is...' I'm in.

The problem with Haneke to me is that he doesn't personally hand out key lime pie to members of the theatre audience.

'dr strangelove' is funny imo. there are bits of humour in other kubrick films. i'm not even that much of a kube stan but his is a far richer body of work.

julio, it opens the first week of november. i saw it at the toronto film festival.

d00d he's an old skool auteur -- his job is to DEMAND from the audience. If you want lime pie you make it and bring it w/you!!

You've made me hungry for some now. xxp = oh nice jed, ws wondering, good that you liked it

roll on november

i actually can't say much other than that i liked it. it's very very dry though. problem was i was sitting in the front row (only seats left over for plebs) looking up at a sharp angle to one of the biggest screens i've ever seen so that everything looked distorted as hell. the subtitles were massive and directly in front of my eyes so that i probably looked like i was watching tennis reading them. i could either read the subs or look at the picture but not do both simultaneously.

at least initially there's information overload on the subtitles. i guess it was deliberate, but in the first scenes it's as it he's describing what we're seeing. i think maybe we're meant to get from it is that all the scenes are like this, taken from his perspective. though how he knows what he says is unclear.

"he" = narrator

i thought that part was the weakest and was pretty unnecessary. it would have been better to open with the tripping of the horse, i think. there were a couple of quite poor digital effects that i'm surprised haneke let pass.

MH's thesis and view of the world (as consisting entirely of complete bastards) did not win me over

haven't seen the white ribbon, but this is my general reaction to haneke. i usually think he's talented but pretty shallow and overly pleased with himself. guess i'll watch this to see if it changes that feeling.

seeing this tonight. excited!

stoked!!!!! this is out here soon, I think

quite amazing. nice of haneke to include some really sweet moments..

this is amazing looking. the technicals are great, especially with shots of shadows moving in pitch-black rooms.

stoked!!!!! this is out here soon, I think

any info on this? i downloaded and watched it already but but would watch in cinema.

It's at the GFT and Cameo right now

what's the dead animal count in this one

2

this guy

v. impressed by how macho this guy is, really bringing realness with the dead chickens and stuff

this basically means the film is a series of Bad Things:

-a dad molests his 14-y-o girl (foundas didn't weigh in on this)
-a dad tells his son if he masturbates HE WILL DIE
-a dad kills himself FOR SOME REASON
-a retarded kid gets beat up BY PERSONS UNKNOWN
-World War One breaks out

But plenty of NICE too:

- The Romantic attachment between the teacher and nanny
- The really funny convo on death between the kid and the girl who is molested by her dad
- and other funnies (the nanny's dad)

5-3 is a good score, for Haneke -- maybe there's a couple more moments.

Will 'why did the doctor leave' become this year's 'why did majid commit suicide'? (never mind 'did the kids really do it or was it the farmer's son'?) Bcz that's what I was wondering at half past eleven while waiting for the train at London Bridge...and what was I meant to see that I didn't in the last scene?

POSSIBLE SPOILER: i saw some characters from the film who wouldn't have been in the church. i noticed Eva's mother and father who didn't live in that village.

-a dad kills himself FOR SOME REASON

the reasons are pretty clear, his wife dies in an accident and his son shames him and his family to the landowner, who subsequently cuts him off, meaning that he doesn't have enough to support his family.

the acting is incredible in this, it always is in Haneke, but Leonie Benesche as Eva is staggeringly good.

Leonie Benesch, rather.

didnt he say in the voiceover that they came to town to check it out?

Totally agreed on the acting - some of the children are amazing on this (although they have some staggering material to work with - a boy walks in while the father molests his sister).

As to whether the film gives an insight into Nazism I don't think Haneke really believes that. The beginning where the narrator doubts his own reliability gives that away. This would've possibly been a stronger film if he didn't drop in WWI, though it gives a point to which the narrator can end his tale -- otoh, alluding to a kind of disintegration of values is something he could have a problem with doing, or saying 'village life was garbage, a vicious circle of abuse' might have been even less of a news to anyone (and there are one or two films that use the village life => fascism equation, perhaps this film also deals with that small mini-genre).

the film's mise en scene is brilliant.along with the usual Haneke's medium/long shot camera detachments -
the kids appears together on the frame while the grown ups are (usually) alienated and/or alone, the ironic replacing of class differences in the baron vs. servant scene...all in contrast to the warmer, more dynamic camera in the teacher scenes - who might be,along with Eva, the only "sensitive" person in the film.
(so the viewer realizes that education values comes mainly from home, not school).

the subconscious guilt and hypocrisy of the parents/adults towards the kids is like a lava burning under the film's surface, and it almost exlodes in the end, as much as it did in Cache - but this movie is more effective, cause the evilness in White Ribbon comes from the inside of us, not the outside.

Haneke's determinism might be extreme - but it's hard to doubt his superb directing skills.

if only he had used his powers for good

Well we all knew he was an excellent director.

Took a glance at NRQ's negative review of this on this month's S&S: it seems the cycle of abuse between characters in a Haneke film is complemented by the abuse between the 'eductaed middle-class' reviewers and the audience that watches. That aside there I agree there is really no insight as such (much less a tightly constructed thesis), and with more distance a mistake to start off with that initial monologue and to end it with the outbreak of WWI (really I am SO FUCKING GLAD Musil didn't finish his novel as he was intending to with that ending). Anyway, its a counterpart to the adoration he receives.

In some ways the comedic element (unmentioned in the review) throws any of the balance off completely, but I still liked this a lot and introduces some complication to the narrator's story. In Hidden, the the 'who dun it' way more interesting, the connections it tries to make are richer by being left more in the background (and working its way into your mind after the film has ended), and the violence - even with Majid's suicide - is just as subtly worked into the fabric.

has this opened in the US yet?

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-12-29/film/certainty-and-a-sure-hand-behind-the-white-ribbon-s-unsolved-mystery/

for shame. j-ho is an educated dude, and he's not the only reviewer to make this mistake, but FOR FUCK'S SAKE, PEOPLE you CANNOT describe early twentieth century protestant germany as "feudal". you JUST CAN'T.

is is an eye-opener that so many say it, really. lines cut from my review were about max weber and the protestant spirit of capitalism (which i think is a minor theme of the film) -- haneke knows about weber, who was published before the events of the film, but of course none of his characters ever could; they are apparently oblivious to the wrongs of their society.

a lot of people seem to agree that the thesis (people are mean therefore nazism) is no great shakes, so i don't know what they get out of it. do we enjoy seeing people acting shitty to each other? of course, there is the famous "warmth" of the romantic scenes where the schoolteacher (haha haneke makes a schoolteacher the one sympathetic character) sort-of romances the new girl in town.

they don't mention that this is all menaced by her mean dad -- straight melodrama stuff and not exactly warm anyway. i like my theory that it's the teacher who turns out to be a nazi anyway. there's nothing to say he doesn't. whereas the kids grow out of it, move on with their lives, get the hell out of europe. why not?

if it's an impeccably shot mystery-movie about morality and society that you want, then... 'the box' is what you want.

the 'thesis' is articulated by the schoolteacher - who may or may not be an unreliable narrator - but is it haneke's thesis too?

not sure. i think yes.

but if not, it has been accepted by its reviewers. very few critics have questioned the narrator's thesis, that this film somehow explains nazism.

i think haneke, from what i understand of his interviews, actually thinks that the attempt to explain, to give answers, to seek closure, etc., is itself one of the elements of fascism. 'hidden' seems to say this too: auteuil is a bad man for trying to find out who is stalking him.

so on this reading it *is* the truth-seeking schoolteacher who is the *real* villain in germany's so-called society.

so it's possible the funny joke is on the critics.

but i think that this second idea (seeking knowledge is fascist) is even dimmer than the first (people are mean).*

*to clarify: if people are serious about saying the social situation of the film helps explain either the first world war or nazism they'll have to do better than saying it was early twentieth century protestant "feudalism" wot dunnit.

and that's why your history mayne

i like my theory that it's the teacher who turns out to be a nazi anyway. there's nothing to say he doesn't. whereas the kids grow out of it, move on with their lives

i actually like this idea.

this guy

― figuratively, but in a very real way (amateurist), Saturday, November 14, 2009 9:15 PM

like i said

this was such total trash and so artless in its sophistication

i saw it 2 days ago in a cinema and liked it. bit with the pastor's son giving him the bird he'd raised was pretty moving! although 'everyone is benighted' was a theme, there was a lot more humanity in this than in 'hidden' i thought. actually, the most important theme i detected was how everyone kept on getting interrupted by other events, how unfolding dramas became quickly forgotten because another problem had arisen. constant distraction, constant suppression. on the one hand maddening, on the other quite nicely done (the baroness' unresolved "I'm leaving you" speech being a good example). klara is one of the scariest motherfucking characters i've seen in a while fwiw - but also somehow sympathetic and righteous

as a narrative structure it was p limiting tho lj - something happens and then oh something else happens isnt particularly riveting to watch - like maybe its "clever" to make an old-looking b&w film abt supercession but it was boring as hell to watch.

also idk abt "humanity" the physically repulsive schoolteacher aside the aura of h8ful menace - both physical and spiritual - around the movie seemed its defining feature. and the refusal to explicate any of the crimes comes across like an endorsement to me

klara wasnt really scary imo - hard to say what shes guilty of but imo shes no monster - none of them are, really except the dr.

every character was vulnerable and flawed, and few characters had no monster in them; even the doctor is shown tenderly treating karli - it is a cliche but some doctors really do lose all their humanity except their drive to cure - they are disgusted by humans and disgusting themselves but they do their job

aside from the sweetly awkward romance, there was a pervasive air of menace but i thought it was punctuated by moments of real humanity, often involving the children (like i say, the bit with the bird was super-sweet, and while i was expecting the pastor to be an out-and-out monster, an evil man, a man of atrocious values, he actually at points made you feel something for him, because he wasn't THAT bad. klara and her oldest brother brought out the worst in him)

i'm not saying klara was a monster, but a force

if the movie WAS guilty of anything, it was of not really having a narrative or any real resolution, but i wasn't at all bored

haha i found the whole thing static and dreamy and empty - sound was really good tho i think - mb too easily impressed w/ silence. generally i wld have liked to know more - abt the characters, abt the crimes, abt the relationships - remember abt 1/3 of the way thought thinking this was going to be a really long movie since so much was getting set-up but nothing really came of any of it.

the moments of real humanity seemed only to serve as counterpoint (lol but what did u think of the use of music itm?) all of them shot through w/vulnerability ~ idyll by the stream ending in the only real onscreen violence i think?

enh feel it was cruel for no reason i guess except a vague (seemingly unsubstantiated) claim abt understanding fascism

i liked the film's tendency to magnify small sounds and concentrate upon the shuffling, bumping actions of the villagers - it often felt like there was only one microphone, and that microphone was hidden inside the cart or in someone's clothing, or right where the sound was coming from. the music in the movie was often imperfect - people were always criticising their own playing

schoolteacher was no looker but he had a nobility about him

imo those cabbages wd dispute yr 'only real onscreen violence' thing - and the doctor's abuse of the midwife/his daughter is as violent as anything pugnacious

saw bertolucci's the conformist as well the other day and that's way better at the whole personal fascism thing - maybe this is a show of how a village can suppress itself into enmity

this was such total trash and so artless in its sophistication

― Lamp, Tuesday, January 19, 2010 3:06 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark

up top!

i don't really know much about this guy and i've never seen any of his other stuff; but imo this was one of the most technically stunning movies i've seen in a long-ass time. like whatever i thought of the onscreen events and whatever i could've watched those scenes for days and been happy.

i know how much of an asshole this makes me sound but i'm going for it anyway: this really lost something being digital rather than shot on film. it was identifiable and anachronistic and TMI like everything digital b&w i've seen.

also lol

i could've watched those scenes for days and been happy.

should be emblazoned on the box

this was shot on super 35

blarg -
so googling tells me. was going on this as a source, my reaction to watching it and it just looking somehow weird was the thing that made me question it.

in fairness apparently they shot it in color and did the b&w (and a lot of other stuff) in digital in post. v. helpful article for u from the mighty american cinematographer:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ac/ac0110/?ap=1#/20

i'm way out of my depth with this stuff but that was interesting - too much detail is kinda what i'm getting at.

yeah i thought the one relevant point (i am a total sub-layman too btw) was that they were going for a modern, anti-nostaligc b&w--mission accomplished i'd say. also interesting discussion of all the low-light stuff which was legit amazing to look at.

yeah i see that. one of the weirdest parts of seeing this film in general was the point at which you shifted from the mindset of watching a period piece, to the weirdly familiar sense of seeing a haneke film dislocated from context - the lack of narrative comfort, the misconnecting exchanges between the adults and kids. that the black & white had a foot in both camps was kinda unnerving to me.

this movie struck a chord with me especially in relation to the paedophile priest cases in ireland. its a movie about repression and how if you repress something so much it eventually manifests itself in weird ways.

the one relevant point (i am a total sub-layman too btw) was that they were going for a modern, anti-nostaligc b&w--mission accomplished i'd say. also interesting discussion of all the low-light stuff which was legit amazing to look at.

strange to hear this, cuz the look was, to me, so strongly reminiscent of dreyer and early bergman. i felt trapped in the past and held at a distance by the B&W, the cinematography, the compositions. not saying it didn't feel fresh, contemporary & haneke-like at the same time, but never lost my awareness of the past and the debt to history. this film felt more locked in by its formal decisions than dogville.

anyway, i liked this, but in a rather dispassionate way. it was involving and mysterious, beautifully composed and photographed, with splendid performances all around (especially from leonie benesch as eva), but it also seemed rather airless, even empty. i rarely felt much emotional connection to the events onscreen, and the analysis of repression and fascism didn't engage me intellectually, either. i guess all i can say is that i appreciated it, which is the best i've managed with haneke to date. look forward to watching it again.

this film sucked fuiud

thinking about it, kind of reminds me of that terrible fassbinder film... effi briest?

Dreyer is a gd call i think

http://i54.tinypic.com/xm5v89.jpg
different definitions of "classic" going on here

I am a very big Haneke fan. Big is actually an understatement. I find his movies to be extremely violent, depressing yet also exceptionally beautiful. I adored Funny Games: pointing the finger at you the viewer for being as guilty as the two boys. I found Caché to be excellent as well, right to the end where you realize there is no escape from stalking/terrorism. And then this. Absolutely stunning. I loved the pacing. I loved the characters. I love everything about it. To say there is no narrative? No, I do disagree. You would mistakenly think this is some sort of mystery. Want to know who did it? It isn't about who is the guilty of the deeds because, in all honesty, everyone is. The adults instill cruelty into the children. (See the letter that is attached to the boy: generations will suffer...) Of course the kids did most of the cruel acts but the parents set the ground. I loved the ending when the war is introduced. It made me think that war might be a "big far off thing" but (German) society, people, enabled this war.

Haneke RULES big time.

i think this might be best to spontaneously catch at 1am on tv (/equivalent) in twenty years time, more than in a cinema in well rendered b&w today

I completely forgot I'd seen this film, with a friend who often wants to talk at length about what we just viewed. I didn't want to answer his questions, rather let it percolate, and sometimes I don't like talking within earshot of departing moviegoers, especially when they're quite clearly eavesdropping on your impression of a film and you give a glib, half-hearted response and want to say to the people walking just behind you that there are lots of things you want to talk about but you're really really hungry and your friend is wanting an Intellectual Response and can't it just wait? Later I watched it with a mutual friend and honestly thought I'd never seen it, before it all came flooding back. Friend is also huge Haneke fan, and didn't like that I didn't like the Funny Games remake.

Anyway, beautifully shot, maybe a little overacted (the father imo didn't hold up so well on a second watch), but generally the cast is excellent, atmospheric dread spot-on, plenty to mull over, would forget and watch again.

I haven't seen the remake but I intend to. Only, I am a little afraid that the story, set in the US, won't be the same. I thought Funny Games was so great because it was set in Europe (and felt like an attack on American violent movies.) I also feel Haneke is so utterly European, he (and his movies) should not be set in the US.

It took a very long time for me to watch this movie. It was so hyped (by friends,...) and I am such a big Haneke fan, I was afraid I would not pick the right time, I would be underwhelmed. So I waited a long time, sat down and watched it on my own. It just flew by.

Going to check out all his other movies I haven't seen yet.

I liked this as a period piece. I thought it did a great job of evoking what it would feel like to live in a small rural village in pre-war Europe. Being Haneke, it tended to emphasize the negative aspects: the repression, cruelty, claustrophobia, ignorance, etc. - but hints of a more intimate and organic relationship to society and nature also showed through. However, I thought it became a bit predictable. Every time the mood started to lighten, you could count the minutes till another shoe would drop. It made the experience of watching the film begin to feel a bit masochistic.

Being Haneke, it tended to emphasize the negative aspects: the repression, cruelty, claustrophobia, ignorance, etc. - but hints of a more intimate and organic relationship to society and nature also showed through.

i don't remember the film well enough to totally engage with this but it's really interesting - tbh the only thing that would make the film more unsettling or 'negative' would be, against the backdrop of the story, to willingly drift towards examining & becoming lost in the countryside instead, as a metaphor for people looking the other way. it's like les sang des betes, in which the abattoir is juxtaposed against the people inhabiting the village w/o knowledge of or reference to it

@ Nathalie Treat yourself to Code: Unknown.

rejected haneke taglines

It made the experience of watching the film begin to feel a bit masochistic.

The experience I've had with all Haneke -- usually rewarding nonetheless.

Oh I totally agree. Very masochistic yet very rewarding. I like his films because they keep scratching at your skin. I keep thinking about them.

Owen, I will! :-)

"Code Unknown" and "En Karlekshistoria" are two movies I find myself over-recommending because people forget, they're both so easy to overlook

ahh i really wanna catch the latter. i kinda think of time of the wolf as haneke's slept-on-classic, bc of how powerful i found it the time i saw it, though that was forever ago & i was young and impressionable then.

I thought Funny Games was so great because it was set in Europe (and felt like an attack on American violent movies.) I also feel Haneke is so utterly European, he (and his movies) should not be set in the US.

H maintained at the time the remake came out that he ws making an American story. Not really an attack on US films - I think he likes Strawdogs and that is the kind of film FG is in 'dialogue' with.