At The Pictures: The White Ribbon

This was a good film. The way some of the shots were framed was amazing, and the casting and performances seemed great to my non-Germanic self. However, I have no real idea what it was about. Violence and cruelty and people’s capacity for both I guess. There’s a point near the start when the narrator says something along the lines of “I think what happened in the village helps to explain what happened later in the rest of the country” (ie, the Nazis). It’s a massively ambiguous statement that he never follows up on. On top of that you get the whole unreliable narrator thing, you don’t really know anything about what happened to his character after the film – he may have been complicit in Nazi-ism himself and just looking for scapegoats in his past to pin the blame on. It’s (probably intentionally) frustrating because you’re sort-of waiting for some huge reveal or insight and it just never comes. So yes, there’s a lot in it to digest. And it’s very very very bleak. Well worth seeing.