Explores Haneke's historically complex film as a reflection on purity,
ideology, violence, and child-rearing.
White ribbons and black pedagogy - Michael Haneke's award-winning film
The White Ribbon (2009) is a multilayered reflection on purity,
ideology, violence, and child rearing. In this tense black-and-white
whodunit, mysterious events occur in a small town on the German-Polish
border in 1913-14. A tripwire fells the doctor's horse; a farmhand's
wife falls through the floor of a shed; a barn goes up in flames; the
baron's son is terribly beaten; a girls takes claims to clairvoyance; a
mentally disabled boy is tortured and maimed. While the film unfolds on
the eve of the First World War, the violence evokes other historical
moments: the breakup of the multi ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire, the
rise of National Socialism, the emergence of 1960s German terrorism, and
religious fundamentalism post 9/11.
Fatima Naqvi's book looks at Haneke's technique of combining various
histories in the digital era. It also reflects on the guise of
literariness and historical authenticity in which the director clothes
this fictional film. It meditates on the film's inscription techniques
and its ability to appeal to international audiences. Naqvi shows that
The White Ribbon bespeaks a certain historical "translatability" into
historical and aesthetic contexts outside of Germany-in marked contrast
to the historical specificity it conveys on a surface level.
