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randall 
"I like to watch."
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 Posted - 07/21/2010 : 20:18:24
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A German gothic, and very creepy without a single ghost.
It's set in a small village just before WWI. There's a baron, whom most everybody works for, a pastor, a doctor -- almost always simply referred to by their professions or stations. Then there is a -- there's no other way to describe it -- pack of children, most all of whom have the thousand-yard stare of alien mind-thief victims, though we witness simple repression choking some of them, including the forlorn kids of the pious, punitive preacher. Then strange, brutal, horrible things begin to happen. Somebody strings some wire to trip the doc's horse deliberately, and we go downhill from there. Beatings, mutilation, arson -- it's like some grisly Midwestern setting for Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy. The filmmakers' inescapable point, underlined by the voiceover of an aged schoolteacher who is looking back on these events, is, these are the roots of National Socialism -- for what will the kids be doing in twenty or thirty years, when they become the grownups?
The hi-def black and white images [actually, color stock bleeded away] are gorgeous. The feeling of missing something important just outside camera range never leaves you, not even during the final, masterful shot, which should be showing you the devout filing into a small sanctuary, but after what you've just seen, is brimming with import.
Won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and was Germany's Oscar nom for Best Foreign Language Film. Rent it. |
Edited by - randall on 07/22/2010 03:41:07 |
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demonic 
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 07/22/2010 : 00:57:41
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I agree wholeheartedly. Immense, engrossing and disturbing film-making that's well worth seeing if you like grown up movies about important things. It reminded me a bit of Haneke meets Bergman - the restraint and detail meeting the simmering violence - both in luminous B/W.
Oh, and it did win the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film, but was pipped at the Oscars in an incredibly strong two horse race (alongside the equally superb "A Prophet") by a total outsider - Argentina's "The Secret in Their Eyes" - which I've yet to see but expect to be God's gift to cinema or I'll be very disappointed (cf. the rather childish and clumsy "Departures" winning over "The Class" and "Waltz with Bashir" the year before). |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 07/22/2010 : 07:30:49
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Interesting to note that Haneke's pre-release interviews underline his original intention to make a 3-part tv mini-series. Personally, I'd have been happier with that.
I did think huge chunks of it were brilliant, but edited as a 2� hour film with a limited range of dynamics, it really tests one's patience at times.
And once you get that this isn't going to be a genre story but an extended metaphor for the creeping process of Nazi corruption, well, I dunno, there are points I just wanted Haneke to get on with it already.
I say these things not to denigrate the meticulous craft of the film, or the vital message that successive generations need to be reminded of the dangers of cloned thought and repressive ideology -- but people should be aware they're in for a long, sometimes extremely slow ride ... however masterful. I'm not the only critic who thinks so.
If you've seen Cache, it's obvious Haneke can pace and sustain unspoken intrigue, and shape ideas into screen images. And I don't believe the problem here would be solved by cutting the Ribbon. If the trilogy structure were still somehow welded to H's realization of the script then he'd have had to totally re-focus the story for the hour and 45 this film should have been.
But randall and demonic are right that it should be seen if you're truly interested in cinema as well as going to the movies.
PS It would have taken a LOT to beat The Prophet - and we didn't get the Argentinian film here, so who knows. What's clear is that, as always since the beginning of cinema, fine films are made all over the world. Shame most of them get such a raw deal on distribution.
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The White Ribbon
