Artful analysis of evil's originBy John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee
"My God, why won't you just die?" The doctor to his mistress in White Ribbon.
Director Michael Haneke seems quite comfortable with ambiguity, as I am, if you remember the uncertain identity of the clandestine videographer in Cache and now witness the strange events in a small northern German town at the cusp of the 20th century just before WWI. That ambiguity allows interpretations that range from original sin to the coming of the Nazis.
Random bad luck such as a farmwife falling through rotten floor boards to a wire strung to trip a horse and its rider plagues a very ordered, even stern, small town without anyone being able to solve the mystery. The most plausible and outrageous solution is the children, but proof is non existent. Besides, as in life itself, many adults qualify. The allegorical implications of children being readied for Nazi crimes against mankind in the next half century are clear, so looking for symbolic clues among caged birds and repressed love is legitimate. You'll not see a better artful analysis currently about the origins of evil.
The title itself refers to ribbons affixed to malefactors to remind them of their sins and the innocence from which they came. The similarity to Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter can't be overlooked as well as the Puritan environment that bred rebellion from authority and repetition of parents' sins. Rest assured, these townspeople are guilty each one of something.
Although deservedly nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign film, it is also nominated for cinematography, perhaps its strongest technique. The simple farms, clean and straight like Amish settlements, highlighted by pristine snow, are waiting to be violated or can withstand righteous assaults enough to destroy whole civilizations. The black and white monochrome assures we know this is good and evil country.
Although White Ribbon is too long by a half hour, it is a satisfying tour of a landscape filled with malice, deceit, malevolence, and a bit of romance to remind us of the evil's roots and the rebirth and irony of white-ribboned innocence.
John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com