MovieChat Forums > Das weiße Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (2010) Discussion > What most veiwers of this movie are not ...

What most veiwers of this movie are not getting...

posted 12 years ago by belladonna99
31 replies | jump to latest

This is not a Whodunit. It is not a mystery. It's not about the Nazis (though the German film maker obviously pins his narrative tightly into one historical perspective, the social aspect could have been anywhere. More on this later.)

This movie is an examination of guilty versus innocent actions and how the meaning of both changes within one generation.

Most of the adult men in this movie are guilty of terrible abuse, seen from the modern perspective. Though the men are monsters (to our thinking) they are innocent in terms of their own society and culture. They are absolute authorities tendering their flock, following an ancient prescription for benevolent dictatorship or condemning godhead over their subjects.

The minister might be a terrible father, in our view, but he loves his children and raises them according to the mores of the time. In the end, he fears them...or at least Klara...but still defends them jealously to the school master even against the evidence of his own senses. I love the complexity of this man, how real it seems, how he is following exactly the dogma of Christ's relationship to The Church in both punishment and protection. The minister stands out as a very sad figure, completely hamstrung by a dying cosmology into creating little monsters. He is innocent. He knows no better. The minister, in fact, is the most childlike figure of this whole movie and will destroy anything (the teacher potentially) to keep "his heart pure".

Notice that the worst thing the minister can imagine his son Martin doing is pleasuring himself sexually (when the son is clearly guilty of worse.) That shows the Minster's facile, childlike, understanding of morality. This also allows his son to consider his greater crimes less important and consequential than self stimulation. The Minister creates a monster morality in the son through his own purity obsession.

The Doctor's treatment of women, including his daughter, is also based on a male authoritarian model that wouldn't be subject to any discipline or censure at the time. Even if the Doctor is repulsive, he innocently believes that he is within the rights of his societal role. He doesn't shirk when the midwife mentions his crime of incest. He doesn't even respond with a "so?" or shrug. It's a given. It is his power. The midwife looks like a hysterical idiot for even mentioning it. Women were to submit to men and all of mens' desires. One has only to read Freud's private notebooks (which he refused to publish) on the overwhelming number of his female patients who were abused by their fathers as young girls at the turn of the century. Freud couldn't even bring himself to write up clinical studies of these cases because it broke into such a secret societal taboo that a man's home is his castle.

Given this perspective, who cares if the Midwife voices emotional truths. The man's authority and power trumps any truth. The Midwife cannot even bare to hurt the doctor, on any substantial level, while he is basically telling her to die already.

The Steward, like most of the other men, is producing too many children. Almost every home in this movie is bursting with children who cannot sustain the life of their fathers. Farms cannot be cut up into 6 different pieces to support them all. What are all these children going to do? There is no future for them. They can barely eat as is (mentioned in the film by several fathers.) How do we deal with this rampant fecundity? The Steward's older sons aren't as innocent as their father. They don't have a Lord that provides. They have "knowing" that their lives become more unsustainable with every child. Their morality of knowledge is completely different from their father's morality of trusting authority and being fruitful (and horny as with Eva.)

I find it very interesting that all the adult men in this movie are not given names (except Felder?) but identified by their professions. This fits with German language assumption where 99% of professions are identified with the masculine gender (with a feminine variant for women that is often not used.) On the other hand, all the children are represented by their names. The children are expected to grow and assume the names of professions as well...except not this generation. There are too many of them. There are not enough professions for them, and therefore, not enough authority to go around.

It's the older generation who is desperately holding onto the White Ribbon of purity and innocence. The two transitional figures are the School Master and the Midwife whose accusations or suspicions are squashed by the ruling powers - in fact, the Rulers can't even sustain the ideas of the School Master and Midwife. The Rulers will violently protect their own innocence and authority. They will not be informed of their own sins or the monstrosities of their own children.

Lastly, there is the Kids. One can say they are not guilty either. The world is pushing them into a totally new role they are little prepared to handle given the dominance and abuses of their parents. The Kids KNOW. Klara is eating the apple of knowledge. They aren't willing to suffer any longer to protect their fathers' innocent world view. They want participation.

How is the world going to deal with the huge number of children who can inherit no professions or authority? Start a war that kills a lot of them? What happens to the remainder when they reach 35 with all that blood and destruction behind them?

Did this lead the Kids to commit acts of violence? Maybe. The fact that the Kids could have done all or any of those acts, and hold even one secret, is enough to upset societal balance. That's all that matters here. Also, these are events remembered by an old man long after the fact. He is often mis-remembering details. The ominous world change on the horizon informs his memory. his horror of what the world became might have influenced his vision of these children.

So, why did the Kids choose these victims? All my answers are mere suppositions and don't really matter for the narrative of this movie. As stated before, only one criminal act by one child is necessary for the narrative definitions of this film. All the rest could be accidents or even done by adults.

The injuring of the doctor - most probably done by his daughter with the other children cleaning up the evidence. Anni was hoping to escape abuse in the form of her male authority. She has a casual relationship to death, do to her father's profession and her own mother's dying. That it just "happens" makes it easier for her to remain "pure" while committing this crime.

Sigi - this is the most puzzling since Sigi could likely identify his assailants but doesn't. Why not? Were they the Steward's children anyway and did Sigi hide the fact? He might still have missed them, liked them, wanted to be their friend. The envy of the flute playing Sigi is very significant, given that Sigi has a flute tutor, Sigi has money for a penny flute, Sigi is an aristocrat. Since Karl Marx consolidated the envy of money by the working classes (which was NOT Marx's intention), the tensions between Sigi and The Steward's children was becoming politicized Fact by 1913.

Felder's wife - clearly an accident though in our modern age we would see the culpability of the employer. Felder represents the old way. Who can we blame? The whole system and do away with our livelihood? Well, yes, says the younger generation - a novel idea in 1913.

The maiming of Karli - this is the most diabolical and ideological of the crimes. I'm not sure who did it, and it really doesn't matter. Probably Klara or another of the ministers kids. BUT, the significance of it is enormous. Karli's eyes are damaged, his ability to see. The Kids hate his innocence and his unsullied world view. They are NOT innocent, given their fathers. Karli has no abusive father, only a devoted mother who protects him from abuse. Karli is unable to be "knowing" given his defect. The other kids have to eliminate him. He does not figure into their new ethos of eliminating the untainted, anyone who doesn't fit into their need for change, anyone who was protected from the rage of authority. When The Kids become the authority, no one weak or innocent will receive any protection. The Kids were not protected. Why should anyone else be?

Finally, Piepsie - Klara's little murder. Little? She was killing the captive bird, not raised for the wild. She killed the only thing her father protected from his or god's ultimate authority and from Nature itself. She killed it on a cross, too, in a way (look how she left it for her father.) What a statement! The only beings one can keep pure, like Jesus, are those raised in a cage (of righteous male authority?)

What I conclude from this movie is that every society breeds it's own monsters. Sure, this was specifically (and beautifully) about 1913 Germany in a small village. But despite our best intentions, the best rules of our societies, the monsters are growing under our noses and slipping through the cracks, abusing and twisting our rules to create the poison that kills it.

As the world in 1913 goes, the children outnumber adults. Their roles are unsustainable. Their elders expect utter compliance by a group that way overpopulates the environment. The destruction of the old system is imminent. What the Kids will create to replace it will be ugly, if only for the fact that their parents will ignore all the warning signals or blatant portents for fear of losing their own grasp on reality.

Yes, I see a big red cautionary tale here. We should all be very careful we don't let ideals and dogma interfere with reality. Future generations will use that habit to create abominations, even in a tiny village.

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] phantom_fan89 12 years ago

Why be so rude? This is a discussion board and the original poster thoughtfully laid out their interpretation of the film. What do you care if the post was long? It was intelligently written and no one was forcing you to read it.

[–] MrAleisterCrowley 11 years ago

Amen, Phantom_fan89. The OP wrote a lovely, thoughtful piece (I say this as a literature professor --- and yes I have studied and taught film -- so I do believe the OP's post was an intelligent reading of the "text"). Thank you phantom for calling out the rude respondent who for some reason dismissed the OP's post and claimed that because the director has said what he intended therefore all is known and any additional interpretation/engagement is not necessary. I can't even begin to go into detail about this here but that notion is simply wrong. Interpretation allows scholars, ordinary readers and listeners and viewers, and so on to engage with the cultural meaning of a text. To say that all potential is foreclosed because of a "pronouncement" (THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS!!!) presents a closed system -- not the vibrant, organic, engaging community that is film viewership (or novel readership...and all Art).

The OP's commentary obviously took time and creative energy to write, and there is no need for the second poster to come along and declare the whole thing unnecessary because the director "explained it all." First of all, as someone who works as a writer and interpreter of (prose) fiction, I know that RESPONSES and INTERPRETATIONS proposed by, say, the reader of a novel or viewer of a play, are part of the fundamental work of artistic meaning-making. The author of a creative text, including a film director, novelist, painter, etc. does not get to "determine" EVERYTHING the text means. They can of course have a vision, and then offer that vision to the readers/viewers, but then the readers and viewers are free to respond. These ideas are basic understandings in the realms of creative work.

And this is what makes a place like imdb worth a visit --precisely to read intelligent posts like the OP's and to think about its view of the film.

"It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?" Blade Runner (1982)

[–] rosarypliers 11 years ago

The original post was well-written and I didn't regret taking the time reading it. However, I find the title a bit unfortunate. "What most viewers are not getting"…sounds a bit patronizing, doesn't it? Who are these "most viewers", actually…? All people who have seen this picture until the day the post was written? Or just those who post about it on imdb. In both cases I think it is difficult to verify what the majority is "getting" or "not getting".
I didn't think of this movie as a whodunit…but nobody told me it was one. It's happened more than once that somebody went to see a movie and it turned out to be something entirely different than ads claimed. I occasionally write on the Lolita (1962 and 1997) boards, and there's always folks there complaining that it wasn't XXX enough.
What I mean is, people who were told by ads or online summaries that The White Ribbon is a whodunit or a gothic tale…will treat it as such.
I came to The White Ribbon because of a very bigotted post somebody made on the Schindler's List board. There's a thread there asking why German people are so violent (sic) and one user answered: It's in their blood, their upbringing. Watch The White Ribbon. -- Which I did, less than 24 hours later, but not before telling this guy that I'll never, ever believe German people are inertly violent. So I watched The White Ribbon the next night, ignoring my mother's advice who told me I wouldn't be able to sleep if I watched it before going to bed. After the movie was over, I indeed couldn't sleep. Shocking images and questions deliberately never asked, even though it seems we have the answer.
I didn't watch it as a whodunit, more like a whydunit.

You may cross-examine.

[–] Quotation-of-Dream 12 years ago

Aside from the fact that some of this quotation from Le Monde is mistranslated here, often clumsily suggesting the very opposite of what Haneke was actually trying to say (!) it seems naive to try to limit such a complex film to being "about" one simple thing or other.

It certainly is NOT about the Nazis, any more than it's about any other oppressive regime in human history. It is about all of us, and the potentials for good and evil hidden (or not so hidden) within every person, every society.

I too enjoyed belladonna99's post and found it illuminating of a complex and totally riveting film. It is not an allegory in any meaningful sense, but a subtle and varied fugue on a whole cluster of ideas centred on innocence, adult-children relationships (not least those defining social strata) and the capacity we all have (whether children or adults) to exploit and damage those around us.

Why people find the need to "solve" the mysteries, when Haneke has clearly spelt out (at Cannes and elsewhere) that though the children are responsible the exact details don't matter; or to say that it is solely about Germany; or to limit the film to some sort of linear, narrative allegory ... well, I suppose we all watch films in different ways and for different reasons. But I also suppose that those looking to it for affirmation of their own particular social or historical views and prejudices are in quite as bad a case as the tragic Pastor in Haneke's superbly absorbing masterwork.

One last footnote. I'm not sure whether the film's close similarities to Bergman's 'Winter Light' have been much noticed. The village settings, the themes of innocence and knowledge, the wintry cinematography, all owe Bergman's masterpiece a debt. The scene where the widowed Doctor verbally insults his ageing midwife/lover is pretty much a rewrite of the scene where Bergman's widowed Pastor [note!] does the same to his ageing schoolteacher/lover in the earlier film - it's so close as to be nearly an "homage"!

[–] engle_james 12 years ago

I really enjoyed belladonna's post as well, even if I didn't agree with all of it. Well thought-out and said. I really don't think the doctor's daughter put the wire there. . . I think Klara and Co. (sounds like a comedy team!) did it to scare his daughter into cooperating with them and joining their group. Klara likely knew about the molestation and wanted the doctor to pay. It's clear from the way the doctor's daughter spoke to her brother that she was very innocent, but eventually she does follow along with Klara. Just my opinion.

[–] rosarypliers 12 years ago

Anni seemed quite innocent, that's true. But I've always wondered whether this was a deliberate red herring. Just like Klara's name is misleading. Her name, in Latin, means: pure white, radiating white.
But even if Anni did not put the wire up, neither on her own, nor together with other children…I think she probably saw it, and she definetely knew Klara and her gang were behind it.
If you see the movie as an allegory of Nazi Germany (I think that interpretation is possible, but not the first and foremost one) Anni and Erna represent those who committed a crime, but did nothing against it. Anni, because she approved of it (she had ample reason to hate her father) and Erna, because she was afraid herself.

[–] pandresss 12 years ago

you think you know better. poor u.

[–] rosarypliers 12 years ago

Explain, please. What makes you think I should be pitied?

[–] gomulkaa 12 years ago

Please ignore user "difficultyou"

He simply copied and pasted nearly that entire post from other forums about films. Those aren't even his original insults. Pathetic, actually.

[–] annseton 11 years ago

I appreciated your post. Those men were not innocent or unaware of what they were doing.

[–] PoppyTransfusion 12 years ago

I like your OP and agree with much of what you say.

I find it very interesting that all the adult men in this movie are not given names (except Felder?) but identified by their professions. This fits with German language assumption where 99% of professions are identified with the masculine gender (with a feminine variant for women that is often not used.) On the other hand, all the children are represented by their names.

Interesting point about the men (and virtually all the women too), apart from the steward who is called Georg, being known by their professions in contrast to the children who we know most of by their first names. I'm sure this is meant to humanise the children in our eyes and draw the audience's sympathy for them in spite of their misdeeds and cruetly.

The film, which is excellently crafted, managed to portray a society which is almost joyless. Very few people smile or laugh. The few moments of levity existed between the teacher, our narrator, and Eva. Someone else commented elsewhere on the board about the children being dressed as mini-adults; this extends further into their behaviour, which is solemn and contained aside from the classroom ruckus.

Away with the manners of withered virgins

[–] deeveed 12 years ago

'Children have never been good at listening to their elders but they have never failed to imitate them'. Perhaps James Baldwin is right and the White Ribbon illuminates the genesis of a sad and dismal future for various societies. I think Mr. Haneke would like us to pay attention. I know he's filming with alot of experience.

[–] maz89 12 years ago

Ain't that the tragic truth.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

[–] saugoof 12 years ago

Normally when I see a post with the heading about people not getting a movie, I expect someone's wild and wrongheaded assumptions of what a film means that is completely at odds with what it really is about. In this case though I must say that was a beautiful summation! The only thing I'm not sure about is Anni setting the wire herself. Other than that, this was very insightful.

[–] cthulhulurks 11 years ago

A very thoughtful analysis. You must have liked the film, I didn't though.

my vote history:
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur13767631/ratings

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] rosarypliers 11 years ago

Then what do you think was the narrator talking about when he mentioned "happenings in this country" which the story he is going to tell might explain? The fact that he hesitates to mention it by name hints that it must be something terrible. He has no problem calling the First World War by its name, and in the epilogue he mentions he participated in it. He must have experienced a lot of terrible things during WWI, but still something that happened later scares him so much he does not specify it…but at the same time he seems to be thinking his audience knows what he's talking about.
Also, the first thing that gives the narrator the idea that something is "not right" is the formation Klara and four other children are walking in. A shot of this was used promoting the movie, and you have to think of the origin of the word "fascism". These children that walk to her left and right are her lictors.
The movie's second title is: A German Children's Tale. I think you cannot ignore the fact that Klara, Georg Junior and their peers will be adults during the Nazi era, and we can wonder if they were capable of acts of cruelty against those who were weaker (Siggi, the baby, Karli) as children…what will they be capable of doing as adults?
And last but not least: The director said so. There are interviews with him on Youtube, and he explains a lot, like how he wondered why fascism developed differently in Germany than in Italy, for example, that he didn't intend to claim that Protestantism is the root of Nazi Germany, but that it had its influences, and so on.

[–] bunnywithanaxe 11 years ago

Another vote for "really well done OP" and I am especially grateful for pointing out the role of the minister in all this-- I think the OP has it spot on. His clear affection and warmth made his weird punishments all the more bizarre. (one of the most striking scenes to me is his exchange with his youngest son, who gives him the bird he nurse in exchange for Piepsi. Just when I was fed up with the guy his response to his son's kindness made me like him again.

[–] anondragon2012 11 years ago

I think you cannot ignore the fact that Klara, Georg Junior and their peers will be adults during the Nazi era, and we can wonder if they were capable of acts of cruelty against those who were weaker (Siggi, the baby, Karli) as children…what will they be capable of doing as adults?

This is exactly the psychological *beep* that defies historical truth.
As if all Nazi party members were psychopaths who had crazy childhoods and all other party members were reared correctly.

Nazism is simply an ideology that rose out of POST WW1 GERMANY due to extreme poverty and inefficient government that couldnt even manage to stabilize its money which became worthless aswell as insane treaties like Versailles treaty which was about castrating the German people and economy. In such countries like Greece today, you have radical parties.

If anything, the WW1 experience at the SOLDIER level had more to do with Nazi psyche than anything that happened before WW1.

Before WW1 if you know anything about Germany (but you dont), it was VERY VERY VERY prosperous times, everyone was happy and there were no regular beatings, sexual abuse, poverty, and other social ills.

People were extremely educated, it was a German renaissance.

[–] Mhzfan 8 years ago

I hope you are using sarcasm to make some of your points, anond, especially in your last two paragraphs. Yes, Germany was industrialized by 1914; yes, it had a rich, vibrant culture; yes, it had a good educational system. But it was also a peasant society(peasant = farmer, not an insult) that retained vestiges of the old feudal system. You saw how much power the baron had over the villagers and how most of the farm labor was done by hand with little to no mechanization. Transportation was slow; news from the outside was passed on at church or, we assume, in occasional village assemblies. There was a school house and school teacher, but it’s a one-room school house with one teacher; nothing wrong with that, but there’s no daily contact with the brilliant fine arts of contemporary society, linguistic and literary studies at universities, or the scientific and technological developments that you could find in urban areas. It would be hard to claim that most people who lived in the cities had opportunities to be deeply involved in those, much less most people in remote villages. It was impressive that the village had a fair number of people with higher education: the preacher, the teacher, the doctor, and, presumably, the baron; the baroness appeared to be educated and somewhat worldly. Still, this is a society that is making the transition from a traditional way of life into one we recognize as “modern.” That’s not a value judgment, just a fact.

No society ever has experienced a time when “everyone was happy and there were no regular beatings, sexual abuse, poverty, and other social ills.” Of course not everyone was happy, abusive behavior went on, some people were poverty-stricken. Germany’s social system was very progressive for the time, but even a hundred years later no country has figured out how to have a perfect social safety net or how to get people to always treat each other humanely. You are probably correct that the disasters of First World War and inter-war years were the most critical factors in bringing about Nazism. Without those factors, Germany might have developed in a very different way even with the legacy of the other factors brought out in the film. And no, not all Nazis had what we might perceive as dysfunctional childhoods and not all Germans were pro-Nazi, and etc. But trench warfare and what we would call PTSD, high casualty rates, inefficient government, and a bad treaty don’t entirely explain Nazism either. The authoritarian nature of German society from top to bottom (and you see the bottom in this film) is usually cited as a factor; in fact, it’s interesting that the children’s behavior is interpreted by some as a rebellion against it. But, however you look at it, it was an autocratic society. Personally, I don’t buy the theory that Germans had a “warlike” nature that some have advocated, but there weren’t exactly a lot of peaceniks running around in 1914 or 1938. There may not have been many in other countries either, especially in 1914, but that’s not the point. Naturally, there are many, many other factors that could be cited here.

In any case and whether you see Nazism as a complete aberration or as a logical, if not inevitable, result of Germany’s past, it’s unrealistic to think that the pre-World War I era was a paradise or nearly so. It’s always worthwhile to look at long-term as well as short-term causes when it comes to catastrophes created by human beings. You may find some proposed causes credible and some not, but you can’t base a sound conclusion on the creation of a past that wasn’t there. Your idealized Germany never existed, nor has there ever been any other utopian civilization.

[–] rosarypliers 8 years ago

Very good post. Your assessment of pre-World War I is much more accurate than the previous poster's. Just because the previous poster claims that I don't know anything about Germany, it doesn't make it true. I was born and grew up in Germany. I still knew people who were born around 1900. They were part of a troubled generation, especially those who grew up in strict, puritan households and who were unable to adapt to the progressive culture of the Weimar Republic.
Interesting enough, some people who belonged to earlier generations, were opposd to Hitler's system. A woman who was born in 1934 remembers how she showed a letter to her foster father. It was from the Bund Deutscher Mädel, and it was composed like a draft notice. "You are to report at…" The elderly man said: "Don't go there. Those people are no good." She said: "But I have to. Read it."

You may cross-examine.

[–] TomRosicky17 11 years ago

wow, extremely elequent and well written. Good job. What an incredible film it is.

[–] anondragon2012 11 years ago

The movie had absolutely nothing to do with the Nazis.
It was ridiculous how the "educated media" who reviewed the film portrayed as some Nazi movie.

Simply because its set in a conservative German village pre-WW1, so immediately when the mostly liberal media views this firm, they think "whites, European, conservative, Germany = NAZI NAZI NAZI".

Ridiculous, racist, dumb = IDIOCRACY

The fact is....If you are European, especially continental European....You will realise the culture of the people in the film was the same in EVERY VILLAGE IN EUROPE. Whether its French villages, Italian Villages, Spanish villages, etc....

Europe used to be religious and conservative. Haneke portrays the village as degenerate with sexual abuse and beatings. But 99% of such villages were perfectly normal even whilst being conservative and christian.

[–] rosarypliers 11 years ago

Except Haneke himself confirmed the movie had in fact something "to do with the Nazis". There's a lengthy interview with him on Youtube, in German. He also answers to the question if he blames Protestantism for the rise of the Nazis. He says he does not, though he finds it remarkable that fascism developed differently in Germany, which had a significant percentage of Protestants, than in 100% Catholic Italy. Also, let's forget that the teacher's first observation that rings odd to him: The way the group of children walk...Klara in the middle, other kids to her right and to her left. They are her lictors, so to say, those who bore the fasces (bundles of rods with an axe, from which the word fascism is derived)...and it is certainly not a coincidence that the generation of Klara and Martin were adults during the Third Reich. The narrator, who served in WWI and must have seen a lot of horrible things still considers it necessary to tell the story of these children. Because that's what the movie is: Eine Kindergeschichte -- A story about children.

You may cross-examine.

[–] whalleywhat 11 years ago

I enjoyed this reading of the film and its reading of us. Thank you.