Film: The White Ribbon
Starring: Christian Friedel, Leonie Benesch, Ulrich Tukur, Ursina Lardi, Michael Kranz, Burghart Klaussner, Maria-Victoria Dragus, Josef Bierbichler, Rainer Bock, Branko Samarovski, Roxanne Duran. Language: German
Riverbank Arts CentreNewbridge
Event Details
- Mon 24 May 2010
- 8.00pm
- Cost: €6 (non-members)
- Venue Details
Riverbank Arts Centre
Main St.
Newbridge
Michael Haneke's latest, mesmerising work surveys the life of a rural Protestant village in northern Germany over several months from 1913 to 1914, ending, tellingly, on the eve of World War One.
Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke's latest, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in May, marks his first film in the German language since Funny Games in 1997. It's also his return to Europe after remaking that same film in America two years ago. Shot in stark black and white, this precise, mesmerising work surveys the life of a rural Protestant village in northern Germany over several months from 1913 to 1914, ending, tellingly, on the eve of World War One.
Moving from house to house, we visit the homes of the pastor, the baron, the doctor and the steward. As we experience the rituals and intimacies of domestic lives, strange, violent acts occur: the doctor's horse falls over a trip wire, the crops in the field are destroyed, an accident happens in the mill...
It's tempting to read the film as a comment on where German society was heading – but Haneke keeps his story and themes closer to his chest than that, so that it ends up being a more universal essay on repression and violence. Partly a portrait of a time and place in history and partly a study of how sickness in the home can lead to sickness in society, it's also a mystery that, in usual Haneke fashion, is down to us to unravel.
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