('BIFF' Bermuda International Film Festival - FEATURE)
The White Ribbon is set in a small farming village in northern Germany, on the eve of the First World War. As a young schoolteacher courts a shy governess, the brutalizing reality of village life is slowly laid bare. The local children play a key role; they gravitate toward a series of violent and seemingly random incidents and it soon becomes apparent they are members of a society that prizes discipline as a virtue, even if it borders on abuse. Though an analysis of the roots of Nazism can be read into the narrative, the film has a more universal reach. Both provocative and elegantly executed, this is essential viewing. P, V, MS
