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{Spoiler!}
I know , it can be slow and mundane at times (not to mention endlessly bleak or without emotional attachment) and Haneke is using his trademarks again - the lack of climax and unresolved ending. But I think The White Ribbon is the haunting masterpiece. It works as fascinating look at microcosm of German society in 1913 and dark psychological study at the same time. What I loved about it the most is it's cold beauty; a cross-section of an apparently idyllic village which Haneke films with intense, clinical precision that gradually exposes horrific events beneath the surface. It's fascinating how camera captures the carefully reconstructed historical setting in a razor-sharp black and white images, showing people who seem to be taken straight from early 20th century photographs - faces that tell the stories, especially those of humiliated and maltreated children, accompanied with some unpleasant images.

About the message - you can say that the movie suggests that the roots of  war and hatred lie not in ideology but in the corruption of our values and the emptiness in our souls with deep roots in childhood's family relationships. Children's individual development - marked by a chilly absence of joy and, above all, the ever-present paternal violence - is blocked with a level of strictness from these village patriarchs. Against this background of this oppressive atmosphere, the mysterious "accidents" seem increasingly like the logical consequence of the unbearable relationships - compensatory acts carried out by perpetrators who resort to terrorist tactics instead of open rebellion.

 

Have you seen maybe East-German film The Subject (Der Untertan, 1951) ? The White Ribbon could be easily watched as companion piece to that movie.