White Ribbon/Das Weisse Band - Best Film of 2009  
| This film did not leave me with a smile on my face, but it still remains the most powerful experience I had at the cinema in 2009. “The White Ribbon” is Haneke’s masterpiece, and he has made some remarkable films. It tells the story of a small town that is hit with mysterious events that keep occurring and consequently harming inhabitants. The village people search to find answers and the culprit of these crimes. Haneke gives us tangential storylines of many of the people living in the village, and we see how repressed and repetitive life was in pre WWI Europe. There was no freedom, no such thing as choice or questioning authority. You did what you were told and, depending on which family you were born into, life was the job your class demographic was in. The cast is full of European actors, and perhaps none will be known to the regular North American audience. Yet it is the best ensemble performance by a cast this year. There are many children in this film, and they give some of the most magnetic, and heart wrenching performances I’ve seen, and add a great subtext to the film. They are treated as second class citizens, doing the bidding of their parents, and are constantly abused, both verbally and physically, throughout the film. There are many moments where you want to reach into the screen and pull them out to save them from their parents, but then you realize that this is what it was like at the time. Haneke takes us to many dark, disturbing corners of the psyche of people at this time, but what makes the film so strong is that it never judges the characters. Many of the characters are despicable in their actions, but we also see a side of them that is touching, and that helps us understand that this is all they know, that maybe it wasn’t their entire fault that they are the way they are, and how hard change is when no one allows for it. The only purely “good” person in the film is our narrator, a school teacher who falls in love, and is witness to the “accidents” and forms suspicions of his own. My favourite character in the film is the priest. He rules his house with an iron fist, yet does what he believes is right. He treats his children as employees, yet there are flashes of love in his eyes, and love from his children. It is he also, that ties a white ribbon around his children’s arms when they have committed a sin, and will only take it off once they have proven their righteousness. Evil is a tough thing to show, and even tougher to understand, Haneke never gives us easy answers or solutions, what he does is give us a time, place and characters that feel real and honest, and lets the chips fall where they may. It was only after I had seen the film that I read that Haneke said that this film is also about “The birth of Nazism”, and inferred that many of the children in the film grew up to be Nazi’s in WWII. After reading this, I found an extra layer was added to this masterpiece. The film is beautiful to look at, and its stark black and white picture is piercing. After watching “The White Ribbon”, I knew I had seen something considerable, but didn’t know how much it would affect me. It is the one film that has stayed in my thoughts throughout the year, and a film whose scenes tend to flash in my mind here and there. Its power is resonating, and its effect, everlasting. The White Ribbon is the best film of 2009.
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