The White Ribbon - Film Review

Tension is created through Hanake’s 2009 film ‘The White Ribbon’ in a very subtle way. To start with, the contrast plays a very important part of the film as it is a black and white film and so rooms inside seem very dark, but outside, especially when snow is on the ground, it is very light. This almost symbolizes that dark and mysterious happenings are taking place behind closed doors. This is taken further in a scene in which one of the main boys is taken into a room with the camera shot focused on the closed door. Although you do not see what happens, it is implied by the sounds and the lead-up that the boy is being whipped. Deliberately not showing this happen allows the audience to imagine how horrible the scene may have been.

The film begins from fading in from black and ends in the same way, by fading to black. To me this intensifies the opening and ending and acts as though the whole film is someones’ viewpoint and almost as though it is the opening and closing of their eyes. It gives it a sense of realism as if it was an account, which adds to the intensity of the film.

The only piece of music that is played throughout the film is towards the beginning, when there is no dialogue there is some fairy up-beat instrumental music being played. This creates a very abstract intensity and is one of the most surreal aspects of the film. Throughout the rest of the feature there is no music at all and this adds to the reality of the piece as it shows scenes how they would appear in real life. The quiet moments, especially when there is no dialogue, create an added suspense. The situation itself creates the suspense, not any added music that you would find in most other films.

The speed in which the characters move and talk appears fairly slow. This may be due to the fact that there is no background music or sounds and so time appears a lot slower because less is happening in that time. This also allows more time to build suspense.

The general theme of the film I feel is to do with right and wrong. There is a very strong religious moral to the story and it is all related to the way in which the children are portrayed and treated. To start with, the children all seem very mature for their age. This is shown when one child confronts his sister about death and he realizes that his mother didn’t move away years ago and that she is actually dead. He handles this information fairly well, which is very different to how some children nowadays would react to bad news.

I found in this film that I was more intrigued in the way in which it was filmed rather than the actual plot and narrative of the film. In general, I felt that Haneke was very capable of catching and holding the audiences attention and draw you further into the story and the mysteriousness of the storyline.