Haneke’s ‘White Ribbon’ is a true enigma

I’ve been a Michael Haneke fan since I saw his film “Benny’s Video” at the 1993 Seattle International Film Festiva l. Five years later I saw his film “Funny Games” and was hooked.

Since then, I’ve watched “The Piano Teacher,” “Time of the Wolf,” Cache,” the English-language remake of “Funny Games” and, just yesterday, “The White Ribbon.” And I have to say that I’ve endured many emotions: shock, surprise, confusion, disgust, perplexity, anger and, yes, a bit of fear. Whatever else I may think of Haneke’s films, though, I’m never bored.

Haneke and Lars Von Trier may be the only two filmmakers working today whom I can describe in that way.

Here’s the thing, though, “The White Ribbon” is something just a bit different. Yes, it’s the only one of Haneke’s films that’s in black and white, but technical qualities are not what I mean. For the most part, Haneke’s films are emotionally based exercises with no particular political or even thematic path to tread. I’d argue that they’re even apolitical, in the sense that they’re more intent in getting a visceral rise out of us than in making us actually think.

“The White Ribbon,” though, doesn’t abide by standard expectations. It’s set in the year or so just before World War I, in a small German village that, on the surface, seems ideal. But undercurrents of evil flow through the seemingly mundane everyday events. The village doctor is seriously injured when his horse trips over a wire strung between two trees. A window left open nearly freezes a newborn. A barn is set afire. Two young boys, each in a separate incident, are kidnapped and tortured.

Over all this, suspicion is cast left and right. But rather than following a story line that would strive to solve the mystery, and identify the perpetrator(s), Haneke’s film - narrated by a good-hearted schoolteacher - disengages in standard genre techniques. “The White Ribbon,” then, never gets to the heart of the actual crimes but, instead, gives us a mostly cursory view of how, and maybe why, such crimes come to be committed.

That’s not going to meet everyone’s needs. I admit that, when the film ended, I thought, “Is that it? This is where Haneke is going to leave us? He’s going to end things this abruptly, this opaquely?”

Yes, yes, yes and of course. Haneke never has been interested in providing answers. He’s not even necessarily interested in the questions. But he’s certainly interested in the process of why questions are even necessary. And what some of his caracters will do in the face of them.

Below : The trailer for Micael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon.”