Popular reviews

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★½ 25

  In The White Ribbon, director Michael Haneke seems to ask us: where does evil come from? This is a story told as a parable, to show us a world we deeply know. It is an inhuman look at humanity, showing us the root of an evil that is (and, more crucially, was) powerful. There is sharp black and white photography, accompanied by static camerawork, and this colourless, slow portrayal of life makes no comment upon it, instead just showing us the festering evil. The White Ribbon is cold, cerebral, and calculated, calmly deconstructing things and presenting them bleakly. It's an uncompromising masterpiece.

  Spoilers from here onwards.

  The White Ribbon is a story of children, specifically evil children. Throughout the film a…

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  Review by Jim Cummings ★★★★★ 7

  I think this is one of the best films ever made.
  I laugh for the first 25 minutes, thinking of Michael going to all of these lengths to talk about the events that lead to pre-War Germany.
  Then the scene happens where the older sister and the boy are in the kitchen and he asks what death is and all of a sudden I'm crying my eyes out and then the movie gets so graphic and real.
  I think this is one of the best films ever made.

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  Review by Lise ★★★★½ 14

  It took me 24 hours to fully appreciate this film. Some things are so obviously gorgeous that you love them during the viewing: the cinematography, the pacing. But it can be difficult to distinguish the various plot points and characters, leading to confusion. While it turns out to be of little importance, as it so often does, it is nonetheless a gamble I'm always surprised film makers are willing to take.

  I've got a thing about films that explore the nature of evil. I have very little patience for the obvious when it comes to that topic. Films about murderers, rapists, tyrants and their like never impress me too much when the film-maker's goal is to show what evil looks…

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  Review by Ben McDonald ★★★★★ 3

  "I gave God a chance to kill me. He didn't do it, so he's pleased with me."

  The horrors of which man is capable when he mistakes the world's indifference towards his wickedness as encouragement. Evil thrives in silence.

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  Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★★★½ 1

  At a Q&A, Michael Haneke explained that he first wrote The White Ribbon as a book almost ten years ago. Financiers weren't eager to produce the film, so he waited for the opportune moment. He told the audience that his choice to shoot the film in black and white was to get the look of old photographs and used narration to put some distance between the film and the audience. The movie is as close to a novel as can be though, with the careful introductions of each character.

  Haneke explains his reasoning behind this film: to show how children are the lowest in society's hierarchy, but they also our future. Some children seem like they're destined to be S.S. Officers, while Haneke insists that most of the youngsters are actually well-behaved.

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  Review by CinemaCl🎃wn ★★★½ 3

  Carefully digging into the origins of what generally lets violence & cruelty seep into our society, The White Ribbon (also known as Das weiße Band) is an elegantly crafted, meticulously shot & patiently narrated drama that's thought-provoking, disturbing & riveting at the same time, and is presented in a manner that's destined to divide its audience.

  Set in a fictional German village, taking place just before the onset of First World War and narrated by the schoolteacher who once used to reside there, the story follows the suppressed children of the villagers who seem to be at the heart of a series of bizarre incidents taking place in the village and having the characteristics of a punishment ritual.

  Written & directed by Michael Haneke,…

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  Review by braden ★★★★★ 4

  “I gave God a chance to kill me. He didn’t do it, so he’s pleased with me.”

  Tracing back the haunted beginning of an unconsciously developing evil, every moment in Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon carries the underlying horror of what we know will result from the societal conditions its characters perpetuate, as the seemingly unsuspecting children of the village will inevitably - after the events of the film - become the generation of Nazis. The film is careful not to limit these themes to a German context, instead examining how the impersonal, excessively authoritative structure of the time moulded the people in it; with the adults apparently uninterested in the emotional needs of their children, rather enforcing purist ideologies and…

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  Review by ˗ˏˋ Liam ˊˎ˗ ★★★★½ 3

  a lovely little film about a lovely little village :-)

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  Review by Steven Sheehan ★★★★½ 8

  Palme d’Or Winners Project, 2009

  Michael Haneke creates the perfect time machine taking us back to a feudal village in pre-First World War Germany, to a time just before a Nazi ideology attempted to take hold of Europe. A tale of innocence lost and corrupted, the type of oppression that creates a vacuum that can easily be filled by the kind of warped thinking that was to follow in the country.

  Everything feels meticulously positioned and framed by Haneke through gorgeous cinematography that makes this time and place seem so tangibly real. What appears at first to be a God fearing town with well-mannered, orderly children living in respect of their elders is slowly stripped bare to reveal the level…

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  Review by Catus ★★★★★ 4

  I was expecting this from Haneko, but this is the most mean spirited movie I’ve seen. Every single shot just screams “I hope you and all your family dies in horrid, unbearable pain”.

  A nice way to start 2021.

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  Review by Lara Pop ★★★★½ 13

  More narrative-driven than his other films, Haneke's The White Ribbon nonetheless retains the director's one unique characteristic which distinguishes him from other contemporary filmmakers: his art of instilling a deeply rooted feeling of aversion in the audience, a visceral corruption which reaches for the throat and chokes. Chokes hard.

  Genre-wise, one could say that The White Ribbon is a mystery-drama set before WW1 in a small German village teeming with personal secrets, and they couldn't be farther from the truth. Haneke does disclose a narrative along those lines and he does fill it with rampant emotions dancing on the edge of the dreaded chasm of man's sanity, an abyss always at arm's length in his movies. Likewise, he does present…

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  Review by Jerry McGlothlin ★★★★★ 12

  They say it takes a village to raise a child, but if it’s this village, I think I’ll go ahead and take my chances on my own, thank you.