Pastoral

An afternoon watching The White Ribbon, fresh-ish from its Palme d'Or triumph.


That poster, with the crying boy... that has to be one of the most excruciating scenes I've seen in the cinema recently. Extraordinary humiliation.


The film seems unpromising -- a black and white German movie about a small rural community in the year or so before the First World War. A few random bad things happen, but no-one knows why or who is doing them.

In its depiction of the humdrum rhythm of rural life, of the hard, grinding poverty, it reminded me of nothing so much as 1974's gloriously colourful Akenfield, now long-forgotten (unjustly, in my view).


The White Ribbon feels as if it should unfold like a tv mystery movie, but it doesn't. You are left with an uneasy sense that something is happening that you're not quite understanding, that there must be some larger purpose here. But it never reveals itself.


The black and white photography is exquisite -- and particularly during the snowy winter scenes, when I almost wanted to lick the screen. This is a lush and engrossing film, one to savour.