i just watched the film,, its one of the greatest films i ever watch,, i feel sad on those children's and the way they transformed ( psychologically ) to a scary creatures , especially the doctor's daughter.
I am happy you liked the film, and I agree with you. The scary thing is exactly how much it makes sense that the children turn into such evil creatures.
@@fatblondemonkey3300 i always believe in european cinema,, keeps me thinking about everything. i have all tarkovsky's films and every time i watch them, i feel like its my first time.
@@Ali_Seraj I think that is the beautiful thing about cinema in general, I have this experience with other cinematic traditions as well. Tarkovsky is one of a kind, I am not even sure I would approach an analysis of him. I do not know where you are from, but I would encourage you to check out Iranian cinema. Kiarostami is a great watch!
Nice video! But who do you think committed the crimes?... Like you said in the video the film was about the parents of the children and the children becoming like their parents, and probably due to their trauma from their parents maybe they set out to do these crimes? And I think the parents are aware of this but are just interested in nobody finding out, shutting themselves more from their society (Example: the doctor fleeing the town) and by the end of the film the last person to arrive at the church is the pastor, who the school teacher claims his children made the crimes, and you see him trying to make his way into a random seat (possibly a metaphor for how we fit into society) and also the pastor had given his oldest children white ribbons after punishing them, rewarding in a sort of way trying to convince himself that they are innocent, or just covering their crimes so no trouble in the society will occur...
Thank you Dilan vs the World! I think you hit the nail on the head. I think that is exactly what Haneke is trying to show us. It is obvious that the children are central to the crime. Who out of the children that do the actual violence is not the central point but exactly the fact that the violence is repressed by the adults. The facade is kept up - whether it be for religious, personal or whatever reasons. This toxic environment is what the children bring on and why the film is also a comment to what can happen to a generation of children brought up this way. I had not thought about the church metaphor, but that sounds plausible. Cheers.
There is a scene not mentioned in the video or your comments that is most crucial to that question: when the schoolteacher confronts the children. I think it's very explicit by that point who committed those crimes. And as for the white ribbons themselves, I don't believe it's really a metaphor (or not exclusively one). The white ribbon, especially its position on the arm and the appearance/framing of the children through the film, resembles our memory of the ribbons on the arms of European Jews leading up to the Holocaust. It's a symbol, but the metaphors and poetic imagery arises from or is strengthened by its connection to our memory. Haneke's intention, if he had one, may have been to suggest to those in the audience to recall where they've seen that image and then understand the film in a larger context. Same reason I think they chose to make it black and white: it looks like an old photo and it looks like something from our past/memory.
In the few Haneke films I’ve seen, it seems that he’s attempting to present and possibly even diagnose the symptoms of certain negative human characteristics and behaviors, but he does so in the most objective way possible (at least to him) and never tries to present a cure.
There is a character called George who hassles the Mother's at the festivity at the middle of the movie. I believe both his kids are the ones who were by Sigi(The Baron's son)while they were all making flutes. One got Jealous of him being able to play beautifully and decided to throw him face down in the water. The other sibling saved him. Jealousy, hate and envy are all visible in this scene...Little Sigi is saved by the grace of the other boy who picks him up from the pond/river. That is when the baroness decides to leave. At that moment i thought to myself: Power don't bring joy & Money can't buy happiness. GREAT F*CKING MOVIE
@@fatblondemonkey3300 What do you mean "but"? I think it IS a great point and thanks hehe Them 2 brothers could signify 'Cane and Abel'. What about Lil Sigi? Innocent boy who suffers from the envy of THY father? Could little Sigi represent 'Jesus' and his father 'The Baron' represent Lord? Who knows...
Then again, scary children have long been a staple of horror films, but this is usually entrenched in some paranormal format - possession, zombie, vampire, alien - indeed, one of creepiest kid-as-monster horror films ever made was Village of the Damned - I'm talking about the original UK 1960 film, not the US '95 remake. (The children in Village took themselves even more seriously than the children in White Ribbon.) But kids as sociological horror - and that's what White Ribbon is about - are probably the most fascinating because they attempt to reflect life as we know it. There are a number of films in that tradition, From "River's Edge" to Larry Clark's filmography - essentially portrayals of budding sociopaths. (Though Clark, I think, often bordered on exploitation.) But these are largely contemporary portrayals - White Ribbon turns back a few pages in history and shows us a generation that is not our contemporary. This is what's unique about it. Yet oddly, the town's sadism and cruelty seem contemporary ( and shocking) enough - there's no idyllic sense of a bucolic, ideal yesteryear in White Ribbon. Notions of innocence and purity are corrupted deceits. The mindset of the town is founded in bad faith and misanthropy. Ah, the evils that can come from a small town - and we certainly see the provincial turning toxic in our own time.
I watch this whole movie for my film studies class but I do have a question What does Michael Haneke’s framing and pacing in The White Ribbon demonstrate the relationships between the people of the town?
Well that is a good question. I would say that Haneke always makes very deliberate framing, if people are not on screen, then they are doing something else that could be related to the plot. When they are framed there is a lot of meaning encoded (an example is the presence of the cross). In case of pacing I think that it doesn't really relate to how the relationships between people are, but more the way that Haneke tell stories. He describes his filmmaking pace and tempo as a similar process to that of composing a musical symphony. Hope that is helpful.
I'm honestly lost. *Spoiler Alert* If the crime that happens is because they are trying to 'punish' them. What did the doctor, Sigi and Karli sins are? And who exactly did the crime? And what is the meaning behind Karla, Martin and the other kids visits the victim (The doctor's daughter on the beginning of the film, and Karli) ? Why did the midwife never returned ? Why did the doctor's abruptly leave town ? Can someone explain? Genuinely curious
Assuming that the doctor's daughter was in on the whole crimes it is possible that she told the other children about her father's sexual abuse and/or his affair with the midwife. In the end of the movie the narrator mentions a rumor that Karli was supposedly the bastard son of the doctor and the midwife, so if that's the case then the reason for him to be punished could be because he wasn't conceived in marriage. Either that or they punished him simply for being mentally retarded (remember the Nazis also killed a lot of mentally retarded people because they were "useless"). About Sigi I'm not so sure, my best guess would be this: I believe Haneke once said that the movie is not about the origins of the Nazis exclusively but of extremist ideas in general, so if instead we look at this from the perspective of the Soviet Communists, Sigi might have been punished because he was part of the Bourgeoisie. Anyway that's my guess on the whole thing. Hope it helps you.
Nice analysis. Tough story to follow, both time and narrative-wise, but the narrator doesn't seem to fit. Other than this, I'd add that from the start, the children are deliberately separated into two groups. As a defense mechanism to their parents' brutality, some of them have formed a coalition. Even though we never see the children talk with one another, it's obvious that they're struggling to escape their parent's iron fist of erroneous morality, and it goes without saying that they're sharing with each other their closed-door experiences. The smart one, which is the leader of the pack (daughter of the pastor - not by accident - Perhaps Haneke wanted to show that the church had failed miserably at those times or that the pastor, as the spiritual leader wanted to portray an even higher level of discipline - thus crossing the line and creating the monsters), seems to be the one behind it all, getting the rest of the kids to fall behind and "fight back". The teacher encounter with her father at the end is the explanation behind the midwives, the doctor's and their children disappearance. They were afraid of the aftermath in case they spoke out and since both of them had a dirty closet, they chose to run. (One could even argue that the horse incident was payback from one of the doctors previous victims, possibly again the pastors daughter or the doctor's daughter told the other kids or just the leader) The guy who ruined the cabbage seemed out of sorts and perhaps a distraction for the viewers, but for me, luck has a part to play in stories, and maybe there's something like this to it ... Now the beating of the retard really bothers me, as it has the kids targetting one of their own, or even worse, becoming what they appear to hate, and if someone has this one figured out, I'd love to hear it ... The only thing I can come up with is that the retarded kid heard something he wasn't supposed to and either ratted them out or was about to ... I think this is exactly it, as explained by his mother before taking the bike ...
I realised from the first shot of the boy with down-syndrome that he was going to be hurt by the other children, for the theme of this movie is actually quite clear, it is spelled out in the first minute - the way it's excuted is what's so subtle and devastating about this film, yet the message is hidden in plain sight. The mistreatment of the boy is a prefiguration of the way the Nazi's would treat 'lesser humans' - people with handicaps.
I agree on your point that the kids made a coalition against their fathers/people that hold the power in the village. They apply the same methods and ideals (violence, terrorism) that were instilled in them by their fathers, and this time they are applying them against their fathers, against people who hold the power and abuse them. They punish the doctor, they punish the pastor (by killing his bird). They defy their father (the kid that starts whistling with the whistle he stole from the baron's kid, just to provoke and anger his own father who abused him). But it's not only that, it escalates, unfortunately. They want to punish the baron (the power) but they punish his innocent child instead, who is weak of course, because they cannot punish the baron himself. And it escalates again, they try to kill a baby for no apparent reason by opening a window and causing him pneumonia. Then they punish the kid with the down syndrome, for no apparent reason other than his down syndrome and the fact that he is weak. The violence escalates, and cannot be controlled anymore. This mirrors nazism/fascism: the Nazi attacked first of all their predecessors, the church, the aristocracy, their "fathers". And then, everyone else, everyone who was weak/didn't fit in.
I think it exactly shows how oppression is passed through generations on the Other, for being different and weaker, singular. The parents punish their children for not being adults, integrated and aware of themselves, which is not their fault and the children in turn torture Sigi and Karli for being different. It shows how easy it is to become the oppressor when once you were a victim. Greatly demonstrated nowadays by Israelis behaviour towards the Palestinians.
To much pride spicily WOUNDED PRIDE, that’s ultimately what led up to World War II. Simply put Hitler was a lowly soldier wounded in the trenches of World War I and he managed to tap into the wounded pride of Germany, and the scapegoat happened to be the Jews and a “ mixed aryan race”. Now sadly that wounded pride exist, the politics of grievance is strong in Israel, in Russia. But most apropos to America itself not to a defeat in war, but to a economy that has for decades past blue color and union jobs behind …….. So naturally we turn to Trump?! Perhaps not in the best of faith but he seems to be the only national figure to address this in some way, if only for his narcistic ends.
I interpreted "The White Ribbon" to be a facile and utterly stupid rumination on 20th century German history, especially through a slightly veiled but unsubtle resurrection of the "Sonderweg" hypothesis. In a nutshell, it appears to suggest that complex events like the rise of Nazism, World War II and the Holocaust were because Germans during the Wilhelmine era were uniformly mean to their children.
I don't think the movie is supposed to be seen as a rumination of 20th century German history, but only a fraction of it. Specifically, life in the poorer and more conservative parts in the countryside. Do not forget how Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and other places looked at this point in time. Vibrant, growing cities that were modernised and progressive. This movie shows an isolated village and one aspect of how this specific time period was hard on children there. Many people, including me, have made the argument linking it directly to the rise of Nazism. I do not believe it should be seen as a single cause of that. The rise of nazism happened due to a bunch of other factors in combination. And I believe another important thing to remember is that the antisemitism in Germany was not particularly stronger in Germany than elsewhere before the rise of Nazi propaganda.
Haneke also mentioned how the evolution of the events is not strickly linear. By that he means that not necessarily all the children will turn into Nazi sympathisers. But sometimes when you tell a story it's much more effective if you simplify things so the dramatic impact is greater. He did the exact opposite with Happy End (showing only a dynamic in the family of the film) instead of trying to explain problems associated with immigration. But the most important part of that movie is about the impact of bourgeois families with other realities. Of course, there aren't any and all that family cares about is eachother
I think it exactly shows how oppression is passed through generations on the Other, for being different and weaker, singular. The parents punish their children for not being adults, integrated and aware of themselves, which is not their fault and the children in turn torture Sigi and Karli for being different. The movie definitely doesn't explain the reasons for first and second WWs by this, but it shows how easy it is to become the oppressor when once you were a victim. Greatly demonstrated nowadays by Israelis behaviour towards the Palestinians.
Hey Alireza, yeah that is also my conclusion in the video. My main point is how it uses horror narrative structure without the visual form we usually associate with horror films.
I found the narration incredibly unnecessary and it felt very patronising to the audience. Haneke is such an intelligent director so I find it puzzling that he is constantly explaining what is going on through narration.
I first read it as if you found my narration patronising and unnecessary, but I was about to say that I am not a good enough storyteller to avoid. Haneke is though and I agree with you, a voice-over is something I rarely like, but I do understand why he uses it - especially with the meta-commentary of how all stories are "created narratives" if you listen to the first section of voice-over. I do agree with you though in the fact that it could have been possible to cut it out, but I think that Haneke wnats the school teacher to be the only outsider. Problems are so repressed that no one really talks about them and the school teacher would need at least one other character in order to explain the stuff from the voiceover.
I imagine the comments on memory are the most important, because thinking of the school teacher's older perspective, this is probably his attempt to understand the rise of the Nazis.
@@adamarens3520 Given it's themes of how contemporary model social and ethical conventions can actually create tomorrow's monsters, and that the children belong to the generation and social climate which spawned Naziism/Fascism, I think it's a fair connection to make.
A nice video and review, but addition of horror scenes specially from the it is just unnecessary. As a grown man I avoid watching that stuff for a reason :p
Thank you to put my thoughts in words, this movie gives you the chills that will linger for weeks and weeks (maybe even a lifetime).
Thank you very much for the kind words!
I definitely agree!
You hear people say things about a film offering "something new on every viewing" -- The White Ribbon is one such film. An absolute masterpiece.
i just watched the film,, its one of the greatest films i ever watch,, i feel sad on those children's and the way they transformed ( psychologically ) to a scary creatures , especially the doctor's daughter.
I am happy you liked the film, and I agree with you. The scary thing is exactly how much it makes sense that the children turn into such evil creatures.
@@fatblondemonkey3300 i always believe in european cinema,, keeps me thinking about everything.
i have all tarkovsky's films and every time i watch them, i feel like its my first time.
@@Ali_Seraj I think that is the beautiful thing about cinema in general, I have this experience with other cinematic traditions as well. Tarkovsky is one of a kind, I am not even sure I would approach an analysis of him. I do not know where you are from, but I would encourage you to check out Iranian cinema. Kiarostami is a great watch!
I watch Iranian cinema too,, who doesn't want to watch (asghar farhadi) films,, and (abbas kiarostami)
@@Ali_Seraj the Doctor's daughter? I think I've missed something.
Ahh, what a great video! Hope to see more analysis from you.
Thank you, Nitruix. I am working on a new script but it will be a while before it's coming out.
Such a phenomenal film. Always stayed with me.
Nice video! But who do you think committed the crimes?... Like you said in the video the film was about the parents of the children and the children becoming like their parents, and probably due to their trauma from their parents maybe they set out to do these crimes? And I think the parents are aware of this but are just interested in nobody finding out, shutting themselves more from their society (Example: the doctor fleeing the town) and by the end of the film the last person to arrive at the church is the pastor, who the school teacher claims his children made the crimes, and you see him trying to make his way into a random seat (possibly a metaphor for how we fit into society) and also the pastor had given his oldest children white ribbons after punishing them, rewarding in a sort of way trying to convince himself that they are innocent, or just covering their crimes so no trouble in the society will occur...
Thank you Dilan vs the World!
I think you hit the nail on the head. I think that is exactly what Haneke is trying to show us. It is obvious that the children are central to the crime. Who out of the children that do the actual violence is not the central point but exactly the fact that the violence is repressed by the adults. The facade is kept up - whether it be for religious, personal or whatever reasons. This toxic environment is what the children bring on and why the film is also a comment to what can happen to a generation of children brought up this way.
I had not thought about the church metaphor, but that sounds plausible.
Cheers.
There is a scene not mentioned in the video or your comments that is most crucial to that question: when the schoolteacher confronts the children. I think it's very explicit by that point who committed those crimes.
And as for the white ribbons themselves, I don't believe it's really a metaphor (or not exclusively one). The white ribbon, especially its position on the arm and the appearance/framing of the children through the film, resembles our memory of the ribbons on the arms of European Jews leading up to the Holocaust. It's a symbol, but the metaphors and poetic imagery arises from or is strengthened by its connection to our memory. Haneke's intention, if he had one, may have been to suggest to those in the audience to recall where they've seen that image and then understand the film in a larger context.
Same reason I think they chose to make it black and white: it looks like an old photo and it looks like something from our past/memory.
i just watched it, and was like "what? not even a hint for what actually happened?" but the hint was there all the time!
In the few Haneke films I’ve seen, it seems that he’s attempting to present and possibly even diagnose the symptoms of certain negative human characteristics and behaviors, but he does so in the most objective way possible (at least to him) and never tries to present a cure.
There is a character called George who hassles the Mother's at the festivity at the middle of the movie. I believe both his kids are the ones who were by Sigi(The Baron's son)while they were all making flutes. One got Jealous of him being able to play beautifully and decided to throw him face down in the water. The other sibling saved him. Jealousy, hate and envy are all visible in this scene...Little Sigi is saved by the grace of the other boy who picks him up from the pond/river. That is when the baroness decides to leave. At that moment i thought to myself: Power don't bring joy & Money can't buy happiness. GREAT F*CKING MOVIE
I had never realized but great point!
@@fatblondemonkey3300 What do you mean "but"? I think it IS a great point and thanks hehe Them 2 brothers could signify 'Cane and Abel'. What about Lil Sigi? Innocent boy who suffers from the envy of THY father? Could little Sigi represent 'Jesus' and his father 'The Baron' represent Lord? Who knows...
@@PhilSeeMore why are you so weird? Who do you think you are?
I felt soo uncomfortable while watching this movie. I cant even tell...
Me too
Where to watch it?
best analysis of this film on youtube cheers
Then again, scary children have long been a staple of horror films, but this is usually entrenched in some paranormal format - possession, zombie, vampire, alien - indeed, one of creepiest kid-as-monster horror films ever made was Village of the Damned - I'm talking about the original UK 1960 film, not the US '95 remake. (The children in Village took themselves even more seriously than the children in White Ribbon.) But kids as sociological horror - and that's what White Ribbon is about - are probably the most fascinating because they attempt to reflect life as we know it. There are a number of films in that tradition, From "River's Edge" to Larry Clark's filmography - essentially portrayals of budding sociopaths. (Though Clark, I think, often bordered on exploitation.) But these are largely contemporary portrayals - White Ribbon turns back a few pages in history and shows us a generation that is not our contemporary. This is what's unique about it. Yet oddly, the town's sadism and cruelty seem contemporary ( and shocking) enough - there's no idyllic sense of a bucolic, ideal yesteryear in White Ribbon. Notions of innocence and purity are corrupted deceits. The mindset of the town is founded in bad faith and misanthropy. Ah, the evils that can come from a small town - and we certainly see the provincial turning toxic in our own time.
Amazing analysis
This is a Masterpiece
I've heard that phrase for several dramas. Only this merits the title.
A very good review! 👏
It's as if Haneke put forth on screen what ALICE MILLER wrote about, in regards to ... HOW COULD it ... happen.
Wonderful video essay. THANK YOU!
great video im subscribed
nice man, nice video
I watch this whole movie for my film studies class but I do have a question What does Michael Haneke’s framing and pacing in The White Ribbon demonstrate the relationships between the people of the town?
Well that is a good question. I would say that Haneke always makes very deliberate framing, if people are not on screen, then they are doing something else that could be related to the plot. When they are framed there is a lot of meaning encoded (an example is the presence of the cross). In case of pacing I think that it doesn't really relate to how the relationships between people are, but more the way that Haneke tell stories. He describes his filmmaking pace and tempo as a similar process to that of composing a musical symphony. Hope that is helpful.
I'm honestly lost. *Spoiler Alert*
If the crime that happens is because they are trying to 'punish' them. What did the doctor, Sigi and Karli sins are? And who exactly did the crime? And what is the meaning behind Karla, Martin and the other kids visits the victim (The doctor's daughter on the beginning of the film, and Karli) ? Why did the midwife never returned ? Why did the doctor's abruptly leave town ?
Can someone explain? Genuinely curious
Assuming that the doctor's daughter was in on the whole crimes it is possible that she told the other children about her father's sexual abuse and/or his affair with the midwife. In the end of the movie the narrator mentions a rumor that Karli was supposedly the bastard son of the doctor and the midwife, so if that's the case then the reason for him to be punished could be because he wasn't conceived in marriage. Either that or they punished him simply for being mentally retarded (remember the Nazis also killed a lot of mentally retarded people because they were "useless"). About Sigi I'm not so sure, my best guess would be this: I believe Haneke once said that the movie is not about the origins of the Nazis exclusively but of extremist ideas in general, so if instead we look at this from the perspective of the Soviet Communists, Sigi might have been punished because he was part of the Bourgeoisie.
Anyway that's my guess on the whole thing. Hope it helps you.
Nice analysis. Tough story to follow, both time and narrative-wise, but the narrator doesn't seem to fit. Other than this, I'd add that from the start, the children are deliberately separated into two groups. As a defense mechanism to their parents' brutality, some of them have formed a coalition. Even though we never see the children talk with one another, it's obvious that they're struggling to escape their parent's iron fist of erroneous morality, and it goes without saying that they're sharing with each other their closed-door experiences. The smart one, which is the leader of the pack (daughter of the pastor - not by accident - Perhaps Haneke wanted to show that the church had failed miserably at those times or that the pastor, as the spiritual leader wanted to portray an even higher level of discipline - thus crossing the line and creating the monsters), seems to be the one behind it all, getting the rest of the kids to fall behind and "fight back". The teacher encounter with her father at the end is the explanation behind the midwives, the doctor's and their children disappearance. They were afraid of the aftermath in case they spoke out and since both of them had a dirty closet, they chose to run. (One could even argue that the horse incident was payback from one of the doctors previous victims, possibly again the pastors daughter or the doctor's daughter told the other kids or just the leader) The guy who ruined the cabbage seemed out of sorts and perhaps a distraction for the viewers, but for me, luck has a part to play in stories, and maybe there's something like this to it ... Now the beating of the retard really bothers me, as it has the kids targetting one of their own, or even worse, becoming what they appear to hate, and if someone has this one figured out, I'd love to hear it ... The only thing I can come up with is that the retarded kid heard something he wasn't supposed to and either ratted them out or was about to ... I think this is exactly it, as explained by his mother before taking the bike ...
I realised from the first shot of the boy with down-syndrome that he was going to be hurt by the other children, for the theme of this movie is actually quite clear, it is spelled out in the first minute - the way it's excuted is what's so subtle and devastating about this film, yet the message is hidden in plain sight. The mistreatment of the boy is a prefiguration of the way the Nazi's would treat 'lesser humans' - people with handicaps.
I agree on your point that the kids made a coalition against their fathers/people that hold the power in the village. They apply the same methods and ideals (violence, terrorism) that were instilled in them by their fathers, and this time they are applying them against their fathers, against people who hold the power and abuse them. They punish the doctor, they punish the pastor (by killing his bird). They defy their father (the kid that starts whistling with the whistle he stole from the baron's kid, just to provoke and anger his own father who abused him). But it's not only that, it escalates, unfortunately. They want to punish the baron (the power) but they punish his innocent child instead, who is weak of course, because they cannot punish the baron himself. And it escalates again, they try to kill a baby for no apparent reason by opening a window and causing him pneumonia. Then they punish the kid with the down syndrome, for no apparent reason other than his down syndrome and the fact that he is weak. The violence escalates, and cannot be controlled anymore. This mirrors nazism/fascism: the Nazi attacked first of all their predecessors, the church, the aristocracy, their "fathers". And then, everyone else, everyone who was weak/didn't fit in.
I think it exactly shows how oppression is passed through generations on the Other, for being different and weaker, singular. The parents punish their children for not being adults, integrated and aware of themselves, which is not their fault and the children in turn torture Sigi and Karli for being different.
It shows how easy it is to become the oppressor when once you were a victim.
Greatly demonstrated nowadays by Israelis behaviour towards the Palestinians.
To much pride spicily WOUNDED PRIDE, that’s ultimately what led up to World War II. Simply put Hitler was a lowly soldier wounded in the trenches of World War I and he managed to tap into the wounded pride of Germany, and the scapegoat happened to be the Jews and a “ mixed aryan race”. Now sadly that wounded pride exist, the politics of grievance is strong in Israel, in Russia. But most apropos to America itself not to a defeat in war, but to a economy that has for decades past blue color and union jobs behind …….. So naturally we turn to Trump?! Perhaps not in the best of faith but he seems to be the only national figure to address this in some way, if only for his narcistic ends.
👏👏👏
Ce serait bien d'avoir les sous titres en français. Dommage !
I interpreted "The White Ribbon" to be a facile and utterly stupid rumination on 20th century German history, especially through a slightly veiled but unsubtle resurrection of the "Sonderweg" hypothesis. In a nutshell, it appears to suggest that complex events like the rise of Nazism, World War II and the Holocaust were because Germans during the Wilhelmine era were uniformly mean to their children.
I don't think the movie is supposed to be seen as a rumination of 20th century German history, but only a fraction of it.
Specifically, life in the poorer and more conservative parts in the countryside. Do not forget how Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and other places looked at this point in time. Vibrant, growing cities that were modernised and progressive.
This movie shows an isolated village and one aspect of how this specific time period was hard on children there.
Many people, including me, have made the argument linking it directly to the rise of Nazism. I do not believe it should be seen as a single cause of that. The rise of nazism happened due to a bunch of other factors in combination. And I believe another important thing to remember is that the antisemitism in Germany was not particularly stronger in Germany than elsewhere before the rise of Nazi propaganda.
Haneke also mentioned how the evolution of the events is not strickly linear.
By that he means that not necessarily all the children will turn into Nazi sympathisers.
But sometimes when you tell a story it's much more effective if you simplify things so the dramatic impact is greater.
He did the exact opposite with Happy End (showing only a dynamic in the family of the film) instead of trying to explain problems associated with immigration. But the most important part of that movie is about the impact of bourgeois families with other realities.
Of course, there aren't any and all that family cares about is eachother
I think it exactly shows how oppression is passed through generations on the Other, for being different and weaker, singular. The parents punish their children for not being adults, integrated and aware of themselves, which is not their fault and the children in turn torture Sigi and Karli for being different.
The movie definitely doesn't explain the reasons for first and second WWs by this, but it shows how easy it is to become the oppressor when once you were a victim.
Greatly demonstrated nowadays by Israelis behaviour towards the Palestinians.
I think categorizing this movie as a horror movie would be wrong.
Hey Alireza, yeah that is also my conclusion in the video. My main point is how it uses horror narrative structure without the visual form we usually associate with horror films.
Cool
I found the narration incredibly unnecessary and it felt very patronising to the audience. Haneke is such an intelligent director so I find it puzzling that he is constantly explaining what is going on through narration.
I first read it as if you found my narration patronising and unnecessary, but I was about to say that I am not a good enough storyteller to avoid. Haneke is though and I agree with you, a voice-over is something I rarely like, but I do understand why he uses it - especially with the meta-commentary of how all stories are "created narratives" if you listen to the first section of voice-over. I do agree with you though in the fact that it could have been possible to cut it out, but I think that Haneke wnats the school teacher to be the only outsider. Problems are so repressed that no one really talks about them and the school teacher would need at least one other character in order to explain the stuff from the voiceover.
I imagine the comments on memory are the most important, because thinking of the school teacher's older perspective, this is probably his attempt to understand the rise of the Nazis.
Daniel Scalph I never once thought this movie has anything to do with Nazism whatsoever.
@@adamarens3520 Given it's themes of how contemporary model social and ethical conventions can actually create tomorrow's monsters, and that the children belong to the generation and social climate which spawned Naziism/Fascism, I think it's a fair connection to make.
Kids are evil
Haneke need psychology
Oh and it was the doctor who blinded the child...due to his hate of his nanny when she said ..she would report all his crimes and abuse of her.......
How did you know?
Dude, stop acting like you have definitive answers to the events that occurred
Because I watched the film @@1232-z4n
Sorry you did not get the film but thats your fault not mine @@zekedimblebee
@@duckbuck1830 they never imply that
A nice video and review, but addition of horror scenes specially from the it is just unnecessary. As a grown man I avoid watching that stuff for a reason :p
The nanny put the wire up ...not the children
How
Because he had been treating her badly. But she was glad when he returned from the hospital.
It is about Islam
nope, it's about the catholic religion and the church. The times of the film and its geography totally unrelated to islam
It’s about whatever you want it to be about.
@@1232-z4n The village in the movie is protestant, not catholic
You really do not understand this film
Disgusting movie
It's a reality
are you christian?