Thanks for the memories!

i must have seen a different film!!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Be warned that I write this as a WWII historian who has also (obviously) studied WWI so I can see the stupidity of this 'film' on so many, many levels that it was truly excruciating for me. Let's just say that this oh-so-deep analysis of what led Germany to WWI (and WWII for that matter) is......... wait for it......... Germans are inherently evil (canned applause here). My God. So simple. So stupid. And might I add that the subtlety that other writers refer to does not exist. The evil of Germans is rammed down your throat with all the "subtlety" of a machete and a foghorn including some of the grossest acts known to humans performed by just your common village-folk. By presenting racism as an explanation so that we don't have to bother ourselves with anything so complicated as, well, history, it is best to shoot the film in black and white to give it a bit of style, since there really isn't any substance. When the 'moral' lesson is that a ethnic group is just inferior and evil and that's that, you better lean on Style. Stop. Please.

Michael Haneke likes to make his movies long, slow and painful, so the story about the group of children that rain havoc in a desolated German village in the wake of the First World War doesn't differ much from that. However, besides the deviation and genuine disturbed characters that this story unravels, there isn't much to offer to viewer when it comes to script writing. Acting will be trademark quality, as in all of Haneke's flicks, especially when it comes to children. On the other hand, the very end will be abrupt, without the expected climax and a conclusive wrap up of tension being built from the beginning of the movie. ''The White Ribbon'' is a good European drama, but not an excellent one critics say.

This is a slow-burner of a film if ever I saw one and, clocking in at just under two and a half hours, it's amazing that I actually want to watch more. It's a tiring watch; we see the lives of many villagers unfold on screen and many of the narratives are actually left open-ended. The film basically ends where it began - there is no tying up of loose ends. Our characters are just merely shaken up by the events that have occurred to them, although I'm sure all of that is about to be eclipsed and forgotten by the incoming World War. Some people may watch it and think to themselves afterwards 'what was the point?' But there's meaning in this movie. A helluva lot of it. And I think, rather than have me transcribe it all to you, you might wanna watch the film and unearth it yourself.

Michael Haneke spent more than ten years on this production, which explains why every little detail about this movie is right. From the first frame on this movie grips you with its bare-bones style and unbearable silence. There's no music, long stretches without dialogue, most scenes only use natural lighting so the screen often goes black, but none of that is needed to generate an intensely powerful suspense. This is mostly due to the excellent child actors, who put in very effective performances. You feel sorry for them, but at the same time they're very ominous. Haneke's message seems to be that suppression only leads to more suppression, a scary basic idea that makes for a very frightening film. Rightful winner of the Palm d'Or, and I'm pretty sure it only got snubbed for the Best Foreign Film Oscar because several judges later admitted to never even having seen the movie.