Friday, September 10, 2010

The White Ribbon


Ever since the Golden Globes I had been hearing great things about The White Ribbon (2009). Too bad I live in the Midwest where we have to drive 2 hours to the nearest art house theater to see anything like this. So, when the movie was released on DVD I went out to buy it.

The movie is slow, very slow. You don't find out much of anything as it plods along and even in the end, nothing is really resolved. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. (You read that right.) The movie is more of a study of attitude than a story with a beginning, middle, and end. You get to see the kind of tensions and logic that played into the German psyche just before the World Wars. And what a weird psyche that was. By the end of this movie you'll understand how Hitler came into power just on the basis that bad things can be covered up if it seems like it's in the better interest to forget about them.

I loved the idea behind the movie and the cinematography is beautiful, but the excruciatingly slow pacing and long running time really keeps it from being a perfect film. (7.8/10)

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