On the eve of its screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, a host of new images have been unveiled from Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon.”
Shot entirely in black and white, Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival centers on a rural German town in pre-war 1910’s and follows the story of the townspeople as they are victim to a series of sinister crimes. We saw the film at MIFF and found it to be an engaging, haunting tale that was aesthetically gorgeous.
Here’s the official synopsis (though we’d recommend skipping it if you already plan on seeing it):
Beneath the sun-dappled fields lurks a series of disturbing events recounted by the local schoolteacher: a horseman has a strange accident, a worker is killed in the nearby sawmill, a young boy is kidnapped and beaten, a man savagely takes his scythe to a crop in a field, a barn is torched. This provides the backdrop to Haneke’s brilliant and ruthless examination of a society that admits to nothing and hides everything.
As the young schoolteacher begins to court a shy governess, the brutalizing reality of village life is slowly laid bare. The local children play a key role; as they gravitate toward every violent incident, it soon becomes apparent that they are members of a society that prizes discipline as a virtue, even if it borders on abuse. Their elders, Protestant to the core, are committed to a value system based on obedience and punishment. As the schoolteacher attempts to assert his principles, he finds that they inevitably collide with the strict, harsh rules of the village.
“The White Ribbon” will play the Toronto and New York film festivals before hitting theaters for a general release late December. [TIFF]