Male power

The White Ribbon
15, Nationwide

Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, which won the Palm d’Or in Cannes, is coldly manipulative and, in a way, probably quite facile but, God, it is good. It is so powerfully intriguing that, for 143 minutes, I did not shift in my seat, yawn, sigh, strain to read my watch or even drift into thinking what we might have for dinner (I’d already decided, anyhow; chops). It is set in a small village in Protestant northern Germany just before the first world war and, like Haneke’s other work — Hidden (Caché, 2005); The Piano Teacher (La Pianiste, 2001); Funny Games (er...Funny Games, 1997) — it’s the sort of film where you have to find your own way in and then your own way out again while trying to make sense of everything that happens in between. This makes it sound like hard work, but it’s so masterfully stitched, it isn’t, and it is certainly a much more rewarding, absorbing and affecting experience than, say, last week’s Bright Star, in which a tubercular poet went all wan and then coughed all over everybody (Keats, man, love the poems but, for God’s sake, use a hanky!).

It is a stark, austere film in every way. There is no soundtrack as such, just the odd fly humming or baby wailing. It is shot in black and white, usually a sign a film has disappeared right up its own self-regarding, arthouse bottom, but here it seems absolutely right, somehow; gives a suitably purer, cleaner background to events as they unspool. The film moves from house to house in the village, visiting the pastor, the doctor, a tenant farmer, the Baron, the Baron’s steward. It’s narrated by the schoolteacher from some time in the future, so we can never be too sure how reliable he is. Then, just as we are getting used to the community, strange, violent acts start occurring: the doctor’s horse is brought down by a trip wire; the Baron’s cabbages are smashed; there’s an accident at the mill; two children are abducted and tortured. This is not a whodunnit — Haneke is too bleakly original for that — and nothing is ever disclosed. Still, I wouldn’t trust the pastor’s children to baby-sit, although I accept I could be quite wrong and, if so, would not only like to apologise, but will also offer to double the rate and put out their favourite biscuits (to include high-end, individually wrapped ones, like Clubs).

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