The White Ribbon Film Review

The White Ribbon or Das Weisse Band is a 2009 Austrian-German film, released in black and white, written and directed by Michael Haneke. The story is about a village in Germany just before the First World War, documenting the lives of the family’s that live there. Haneke said, the film is about "the origin of every type of terrorism be it of political or religious nature." To me it doesn't come across that way at all, it just seems like a horrid film about child abuse and there was no reason to make the film in the first place.


The plot of the film was ludicrous because they seemed to dismiss and shrug off everything they had been meaning to find out throughout the film, so you don’t even know who is responsible for everything that’s happened in the village, starting with the doctor coming off this horse, in the end. It was hugely long for a film of that nature and very confusing. The only parts I seemed to like (because they were mildly happy) was the little boy and his bird and the two lovers finally got together in the end (the only happy ending in the film).

 Looking at the way it was filmed is a different matter, it was very cleverly shot, with long scenes of silence that tend to tell more of a story then when the actors are speaking. And for a modern film to be changed to black and white for the whole film is strange to see in days of HD TV and I thought it was done very well (even if still looking a little to modern). All in all I didn’t enjoy this film at all, some parts made me feel ill, and the film was basically pointless because they didn’t finish the plot. I didn’t find it helpful, apart from seeing what they might have had in a home before the war, it didn’t show any of the war or how the village would have been affected during and after the war.