This one intrigues me. Might have to watch it online for I don't see it coming around here.

Strange events happen in a small village in the north of Germany during the years just before World War I, murders, which seem to be ritual punishment. The abused and suppressed children of the villagers seem to be at the heart of this mystery.

Haneke is one of my favorite directors, seen everything he's done except the original Funny Games. Can't wait to see this, a major departure for him setting a film in the past. Should be great.

Very excited for this one.

Onion AV Club Review:

The White Ribbon


Grade: A
# Director: Michael Haneke
# Cast: Rainer Bock, Burghart Klaußner, Christian Friedel
# Rated: R
# Running time: 144 minutes

Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon begins and ends with single acts of violence fated to spread harm far beyond their intended targets. It opens in a small village in northern Germany, where a doctor (Rainer Bock) is hospitalized after his horse trips over a nearly invisible wire mysteriously strung between two trees along his daily route. It concludes with the residents of the same village learning about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the inciting incident of World War I. By then, they’ve grown accustomed to violence, but not appreciably wiser about where it comes from, or where it will someday take them.

Haneke’s latest is essentially an inquiry into the roots of a certain kind of evil, the sort committed en masse when old ways of thinking start to fall into hypocrisy and irrelevance, and crueler forms start to take their place. Shot with dry discipline in striking black and white, the deliberately paced, consistently unnerving film invites viewers into every corner of its town, from its stately manor to its humblest abode, finding in each an air of unease and discontentment. The working-class citizens break their backs, and sometimes die, to earn only one day of feasting per year as their reward. The baroness wants for nothing, yet wants nothing more than to leave. The pastor lives in perpetual disappointment at the moral failings of his flock, including those in his home. The doctor has turned his despair into abuse. And the children have ideas of their own.

Many terrible happenings follow Ribbon’s opening incident. Some of them are brought to the public eye, while others remain confined behind closed doors. But as the incidents pile up, and the film reveals the source of at least some of the trouble, it becomes obvious that each is the fruit of the same infected soil. Looking back to the beginning of the century, Haneke’s rebuke to nostalgia takes no comfort in the notion of a simpler time. Of course, the particular place he lands in the past offers little comfort. While developing the details of village life, Haneke never puts too fine a point on the fact that the generation we’re watching come of age will soon put its dark mark on the world. Quietly working together to erase the limits of the permissible, they begin a course toward the unthinkable.

damn it all to hell,

a good quailty picture on one of the watch movies .net links. I don't know whether to wait until it hits my theater in Feb or to watch it tonight.

Have you seen any of his other movies? I've never gotten to see one in the theater so I'm definitely waiting.

i haven't seen any other works, no. But from the looks of it, I'm not too gung-ho about bloated sadism as others are, and some of his films look to be like that.

I can't wait for this.

He's one of the best directors of the last twenty years, you should check out his stuff. His movies are definitely disturbing, but there's a reason for it.

will see

Really? Sweet. Be prepared for a fucked up experience.

i've only seen one of haneke's films before, but i liked it a lot (cache).

double post, my bad.

Nice. I have a feeling this could easily be his best. I remember watching a trailer and getting chills when one of the kids asks "was ist 'tot'?" ("what is 'death'?").

So I saw this last night. Fantastic. Really everything I expected and more. There are certain scenes that I will think about for a long time to come.

Anyone else see it? I want to talk about it.

Did anyone else ever go see this?

I forgot all about it.

It hurts a little, doesnt it orpheus.