Starring Christian Friedel, Leonie Benesch, Ulrich Tukur, Ursina Lardi, Burghart Klaussner, Steffi Kuhnert

Directed by Michael Haneke

★★★★

Michael Haneke makes films that make you meditate hard on their subject matter; indeed, some would say that they demand it. Dark and uncomfortable themes were explicitly dealt with in The Piano Teacher and Funny Games and to a degree The White Ribbon is not much different. It is the number of small, subtle differences however, that make this his most accomplished work to date.

Set in a small German Protestant town shortly before the outbreak of the First World War it is an intriguing story of how, following a series of malicious acts, a community is seriously shaken out of its sense of status quo. The first of these occurs when the town’s doctor is badly injured after his horse is tripped by a wire, seemingly placed intentionally in its path.

The events are narrated from memory by the town school teacher many years after they occur, and while the delivery has a vagueness that adds uncertainty to the facts, it appears most likely an attempt to offer some sort of explanation as to the atrocities that occurred in that country some twenty odd years later.

As we are slowly introduced to the key protagonists, an air of unease and deep austerity cloaks the proceedings; there is the wealthy baron who seems to have a near authoritive hold over the entire town, a bitter mid wife and her learning disabled son and a strict, deadpan pastor who preaches the utmost penance and purity to his congregation, but mostly to his own children. It is only really the aforementioned school teacher and the young woman he pursues, who show any real warmth.

When a farmer loses his wife in an industrial accident, tensions run high and a palpable contrast is seen between the town’s upper and working classes.

As suspicions grow and fingers are pointed, the focus shifts to the children, who are undeniably caught up in the teachings as each judgment is made and each action taken.

The White Ribbon is a complex work of admirable scrutiny and rewards with cinematic splendour as much as it begs further study. Its sparse visuals and stern, perfectly calculated performances owe hugely to the excellent monochrome cinematography by Haneke regular Christian Berger, whose haunting use of subtle shades acutely captures the telling nuances in a film where the silent close-up is often the storyteller.

Michael Haneke is still showing us what we may find less than comfortable to see and still teaching us lessons that may require raw honesty in order to be learnt, but he is proving that he can do so in more and more styles and raise the quality bar each time. One can only, how ever cautiously, look forward to whatever comes next.