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…

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…

“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…

Carefully digging into the origins of what generally lets violence & cruelty seep into our society, The White Ribbon (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, the film has…

I'm not always in the mood for Hanake's often deliberately grueling brand of blunt novelistic psychological/metaphorical writing or pretentiously miserable and clinical "beauty has to suffer" observational style, but it felt right to wait this one out and clear up my biggest Palme d'Or-winning blindspot of his in a theater, which ended up being the right setting to really concentrate on some the specific off-putting textures and rhythms of how he translates his strict religious upbringing in Austria to an upsetting 1910s German village period drama. One that plays out a fable-like microcosm/test-run of an authoritarian hierarchy (filled with patriarchal abuse, religious fundamentalism, sexual repression and class-based suffering) that slowly bleeds into a strange and somber reflection on the broader…

Evil doesn't just suddenly appear in human's mind, it plants, it forms, grows and strengthens from generation to generation, through abuse, harrasement and indifferent attitude in parent-child relationship. Who else if not Michael Haneke was perfect to make a film about origins of evil and more precisely about origins of fascism. Evil like a ghost floating through the village, appearing out of the blue, causing violence and chaos and going away in seeking of the next target.

In its entirety The White Ribbon isn't exactly the sharpest Haneke's work and not the bleakest, but the realest one, there's no exaggeration in how violence and abuse affect people's lives, especially in childhood, and that is the scariest and bleakest part of…