Pluskylang Great Film overall

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

shelleyk-87798 Be warned that I write this as a WWII historian who has also (obviously) studied WWI so I can see the stupidity of this 'film' on so many, many levels that it was truly excruciating for me. Let's just say that this oh-so-deep analysis of what led Germany to WWI (and WWII for that matter) is......... wait for it......... Germans are inherently evil (canned applause here). My God. So simple. So stupid. And might I add that the subtlety that other writers refer to does not exist. The evil of Germans is rammed down your throat with all the "subtlety" of a machete and a foghorn including some of the grossest acts known to humans performed by just your common village-folk. By presenting racism as an explanation so that we don't have to bother ourselves with anything so complicated as, well, history, it is best to shoot the film in black and white to give it a bit of style, since there really isn't any substance. When the 'moral' lesson is that a ethnic group is just inferior and evil and that's that, you better lean on Style. Stop. Please.

orhan Akdeniz The film is a bit weaker than Haneke's other films. But not bad. But he does not achieve exactly what he wants to do. How did Nazism come from? A town explains this. Religion stays on everything, education is inadequate, science is used for devious purposes. But there is no answer to the main problem. why people are nazi? Is it human nature?

Kirpianuscus a film about the roots of evil. precise. fascinating. using the terror in a special manner. a village. and few crimes. the children's faces. the adults ambiguity. and the tension like a fog. a film who reminds Ingmar Bergman's universe but who propose a different perspective about the angry who change, step by step, the life of a community for remind the truth about it. an useful parable about the evil who grow up in the middle of serenity. and a splendid film in which each scene becomes key for define the every day reality. a parable. not original but useful. because it is picture of fury who seems be part of accidents in ordinary place. and who becomes the rule.

krisrox Northern European literature is rife with family tales and coming-of-age stories told against the backdrop of Lutheran austerity. During its heyday - he 1970s and 1980s - Dutch and German filmmakers translated several of these novels to the silver screen, with reasonable results. But here comes Michael Haneke, an Austrian(!) director with the superb, original "Das Weiße Band" to belatedly capture Calvinist cinema's crown.Shot in stark black and white, "Das Weiße Band" transports us to a German village in the 1910s, where people work hard, pray hard and go nowhere, literally. If you squint, there's a touch of Twin Peaks here: Haneke's efficient script wastes no time introducing us to a variety of villagers, all of them struggling in one way or the other. Instantly, ominous things start to happen. Right from the opening credits, the atmosphere is captivating and believable. My grandparents grew up in the 1910s, and Haneke's sets look completely like their family photographs.Without giving away too much of the plot: this movie is very pretty, but contains some painful images. It is restrained and formal, but emotionally draining. It is not recommended for viewers who can't stand to see children get hurt. At the same time, it features some great, lighthearted scenes illustrating the social customs a century ago. The scenes with the schoolteacher and his fiancée are particularly priceless.Highly recommended.