Recently Shown - THE WHITE RIBBON (2009)
Friday, March 12th - Thursday, March 18th
Director: Michael Haneke
Rating: R * 2 hours 24 minutes * Mystery
Starring: Christian Friedel, Leonie Benesch
Nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Foreign Language Film & Best Cinematography
A village in Protestant northern Germany. 1913-1914. On the eve of World War I. The story of the children and teenagers of a choir run by the village schoolteacher, and their families: the baron, the steward, the pastor, the doctor, the midwife, the tenant farmers. Strange accidents occur and gradually take on the character of a punishment ritual. Who is behind it all? The village schoolteacher observes, investigates and little by little discovers the incredible truth. Are we being asked to consider whether these events heralded something that would explode years later with the rise of Nazi Germany? Did these events contain the germs of the tragedies that followed?
"Detailed yet oblique, leisurely but compelling, perfectly cast and irreproachably acted, the movie has a seductively novelistic texture complete with a less-than-omniscient narrator."-VILLAGE VOICE