The White Ribbon (2009) on Netflix
R20092h 24mDramaHistoryMystery
In July 1913, a schoolteacher in a Protestant German village courts Eva, the baron's nanny. The pastor ties white ribbons to his two eldest children, and strange events unsettle the village.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.8/1082,145 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
Eichwald is a Protestant village in eastern Germany in the fifteen months before World War I, where a landowning baron, a pastor and a widowed doctor hold authority over the farmers and their children. The schoolteacher, who recalls these events years later, courts Eva, the baron's nanny, and hopes to marry her. The pastor ties white ribbons to the arms of his two eldest children as a reminder of purity, and punishes his son after the boy confesses to impure touching. The village's quiet order breaks when a wire stretched between two trees brings down the doctor's horse, injuring him, and a farmer's wife dies at the sawmill when the floorboards beneath her give way.
Cast
- Fion Mutertas Sigi
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The White Ribbon (2009)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The role of the pastor was written for Ulrich Mühe, who had starred in several Haneke films but died in 2007; the part went to Burghart Klaußner, whom the director had not personally known before.
- More than 7,000 children were interviewed over a casting period that lasted six months before the film's young cast was chosen.
- The film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards, but its entry as Germany rather than Austria caused controversy: Martin Schweighofer of the Austrian Film Commission called it essentially Austrian, and Sony Pictures Classics reportedly pressured Germany to submit it.
- The White Ribbon began as a television mini-series written for the Austrian broadcaster ORF; when no co-producer willing to invest had been found after five years, Michael Haneke put the project on hold.
- Every scene was shot in colour and only afterwards altered to black and white; Michael Haneke wanted the environments very dark, so many indoor scenes were lit only by practical sources such as oil lamps and candles.
- In the 360-degree dance scene, tiles were added frame by frame to replace the original Eternit roofs, part of digital retouching that removed modern details and sharpened objects and facial expressions.
