Grand Prix 2009

Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon":
The Sins of the Father Are to be Laid Upon the Children

Innocence, sin, guilt, responsibility, punishment… In The White Ribbon (Das weisse Band) Michael Haneke once again puts humanity (as "the human race" and as human nature) to the test and with despair examines the intrinsic evil that seems to reside at the very heart of every community and be part of each personal interaction.

A local schoolteacher tells the story many years later of a series of malevolent, criminal events that struck a Protestant town in northern Germany shortly before the advent of World War I. The crimes remain forever unsolved, but all the evidence seems to point at the children, those of the pastor, the steward, the baron, the doctor… The children of the community's spiritual and material authorities are the victims, the victimizers or both. If they are in fact taking evil into their own hands, it is seemingly to protect themselves from — or to avenge themselves against? — Evil.

The presence of the young is uncanny, especially when assembled — it appears both threatening and accusatory. "Children will be punished for their parents' sins," warns a message left at one of the crime scenes. Thus it is suggested that the children (and isn't everybody someone's child?) at the same time must bear the weight of the impurity of their ancestors and also mete out the punishment, not only to those who passed on the sin, but also to themselves. Despite their individuality, they seem to act (whether we see it or not) collectively. Even if there is an individual who can be held accountable, he is hidden behind the ambiguous and shapeless collective.

The narrator's off voice — the only truly emotional expression in the film that contrasts with the coldness of the monochrome photography — explicitly connects the events that took place in his small town on the eve of the Great War to those that would soon after shake the world far beyond Germany's borders. The link between the two is not historical but moral: the idea is that such a war is only conceivable in a society where something such as this can occur.

The title refers to the white ribbon that the pastor makes his children wear to remind them of purity and virtue. However, instead of comforting or guiding them, it seems to put an unbearable burden on their shoulders. The weight of this forced and codified morality cannot be represented, just like the criminal acts themselves: once more Michael Haneke plays with the visibility and invisibility of the events, and thus of guilt. The camera, as cold as usual, or perhaps even colder, puts the spectator in the position of partial (in both senses of the word) witness, unable not only to find out more about what he is being given in a measured way but also to get more involved than the detached visual narration allows.

Although the film deals entirely with judgment, guilt and punishment, it prevents the viewer from judging or even clearly attributing the guilt. Thus the crimes remain unsolved and unpunished, eclipsed by the dawning of much graver events. Or perhaps the punishment is so serious and wide-reaching that it seems to transcend the specific authors of the crimes, and lay its weight on what seems to be the true culprit: humankind as a whole.

Pamela Biénzobas
© FIPRESCI 2009

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