Das weiße Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009) YTS

Reviewed by CinemaSerf 7 / 10

It all starts when the local doctor (Rainer

It all starts when the local doctor (Rainer Bock) is knocked from his horse by some wire carefully strung between two trees. Incapacitated and sent to the (not so) nearby hospital, his is just the start of some fairly brutal mishaps that befall this small rural community as Europe drifts towards the start of the Great War. It's a sort of feudal existence for this community were everything stems from the baron (Ulrich Tukur). When his young son is violently assaulted, tensions run high in the village and as more atrocities emerge they all start to turn on each other and suspicions run high. It might be, though, that the children of the pastor might hold the key. That's what the narrator, and rather naive teacher (Christian Friedl) eventually concludes, but as he investigates as surreptitiously as he can, we find a great deal more going on amidst a village of child molesting, cruelty, adultery and basically anything that could easily contribute to the negative mindset of those carrying out these acts of pretty calculated wickedness. Each of the villagers has their moment in the cinematic sun as we are taken, almost door to door, on a tour of their foibles and peccadilloes. It delivers quite a potent look at the almost, sometimes literal, incestuous nature of country life where people live in fear of losing their patronage and their survival depends on the harvest - and that depends on a God who is represented by Burghart Klaußner's enigmatically characterised pastor. This is a conflicted man more concerned with a status quo than necessarily with the truth. There is mystery here, but that rather fades into the background of quite a disturbing character study that is puzzling and intriguing.

Reviewed by mehmet_kurtkaya 9 / 10

Nurturing Fascism Somewhere in Black and White Germany

During the course of the year before WWI, a series of tragic and suspicious looking incidents take place in a small farming village somewhere in black and white Germany. The culprit or the culprits behind the crime wave will not be too easy to find.The doctor, the priest, the baron and the teacher who also narrates the film form the elite of the village. We get to know each one of them and a few other villagers along with children of this village, calm on the surface but deeply tormented by an undercurrent of brutality, envy, malice and apathy.The children's natural path to maturity is blocked by strict religious morality, cruelly enforced by the priest, thereby inhibiting their personal observation of the world around them. The priest feeds children with guilt and sexual repression instead of love and punishes even their most innocent mistakes. Certainly this environment will make it easy for them to not only accept but seek ruthless authority later in life.As might be expected, love in this town is restrained and uneasy, while incest and affairs are overlooked by villagers. The Baron employs half of the village in his farm, yet almost no one seems to be against feudalism, nor rise up against the accidents that happen in the workplace. Social justice is a stranger to town, yet villagers are entrenched in apathy.If adults do not face up the truth, however this truth might be against their convictions, rise up and take charge, then who will? And according to whose morality? Isn't fascism with racism, in short Nazism, misdirected popular anger and an easy response to deep injustices within a society ? Haneke observes mostly psychological, educational and religious roots of Nazism while leaving economic aspects mostly in the background.Visuals of the film are very solid. The symmetry in the shots and the tidiness of the houses, even of those belonging to the poor farmers hint at the discipline and rigor Germans are well known for. Acting is top notch by the whole cast, especially children's faces beam just like in Bergman films. Directing was superb.Haneke uses a village and a narrator similar in essence to Lars Von Trier's Dogville, still these two movies are clearly different.Das Weisse Band has also some similarities to Cache, but just one notch less satisfying than his masterpiece which had a slightly more intriguing and fulfilling story. This movie is made more accessible by Haneke with his choice of more obvious tips, where sometimes characters talk directly about the situation. But in a time and age when people are battling too many problems and drug themselves with TV and easy payoffs who could blame Haneke? Given the current global economic conditions and the fanaticism running high across all three major religions, this is a must-see movie for anyone caring about the future of our global village to avoid a Le Temps du Loup type of ending!

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Das weiße Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte

2009 [GERMAN]

Action / Drama / History / Mystery / Thriller

Das weiße Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte

2009 [GERMAN]

Action / Drama / History / Mystery / Thriller

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It all starts when the local doctor (Rainer

Nurturing Fascism Somewhere in Black and White Germany

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