OK, YOU'VE WAITED LONG ENOUGH :) THE WHITE BAND

Well, if you’ve been nominated for 2 Oscars® and you are actually a film directed by Michael Haneke, that is already quite a lot going for you. Add to that BAFTAs, various awards at Cannes and a Golden Globe and that is pretty damn good reference. You sit down to watching The White Band with such expectations. The film is everything you expect and more. And as it is usually the case with Haneke, it is neither easy to watch nor understand but once you “receive” the message he is trying to transmit, well, I frankly had tears in my eyes although bizarrely enough I wouldn’t be able to tell you why… Just let me tell you what the film is about first and you can decide for yourself…
The story takes place in a small village in Germany, in the 15 months that lead up to the First World War. The village schoolteacher is our narrator and tells us the story of a series of rather extraordinary events that take place in the village around that time. The village is seemingly a typical village of its time, a baron lives nearby and owns most of the land. There is the doctor, a prominent member of the community of course, the midwife who lives with her mentally handicapped son and the pastor, who is a knowledgeable and strict man, especially with his own children. It all starts with the Doctor’s accident. He falls while riding, and it is then discovered that his horse has been tripped by a wire, cunningly concealed on his way back home. Other accidents start happening. Tension in the village begins to mount. A new-born baby is left to die infront of an open window. The baron’s son is attacked. Then the midwife’s handicapped son is attacked, so badly that he may actually lose his sight… Then the schoolteacher makes an extraordinary discovery. He discovers the culprit of these misdeeds. But how in the world will he explain this to the rest of the village? And is there anything anyone can do about it?
I do not want to give too much away about this one. First of all, you may have watched it /read about it and know the story from beginning to end, which is fine. Or you might not have watched it yet in which case you probably do NOT want any spoilers. So I will concentrate on my impressions of the film and how it made me feel and not the storyline…
Hanneke has undertaken the rather solemn and hideously difficult task of explaining how The Holocaust came about. (Well of course, you cannot have one simple explanation for something like that but he has definitely hit on a very good point to put it mildly). This is a tricky topic, and Haneke handles it with the sensitivity and subtlety that befits a master. The one thing I really liked about the film is that it is not “in your face” the way this kind of film tends to be. It is not graphic in anyway and rather than showing the viewer pictures or telling them a story, he evidently wishes to put them face to face with a certain situation and make them think. Really actively participate in the subject and draw their own conclusions. Use their imaginations. You could just watch the movie without thinking about it at all, in which case it would be “just another arty movie” with “no proper conclusion”. But when you think about it and make a few simple connections to the events of the years to come, well personally I was bowled over. And Haneke’s view is very evidently that there was nothing anyone could do to stop what was coming. It is in short a highly disturbing film that you will watch in a heartbeat and think about for a long time… In my view an experience not to be missed.