Saw the Palme d'Or Cannes winner The White Ribbon today. Film is in German with subtitles, is almost 2 1/2 hours long and is black and white. It is extremely well done, acting is excellent though it is slow. I think the story could've been told in 90 minutes. Eg, several minutes watching a door while parent beats his son on the other side of the door.

Story is told by an old retired school teacher who taught in a small German village in the year prior to WWI.He starts off by saying that some of the things he observed in this village explains why the Germans did what they did in the 30's and 40's, eg. Nazism and WWII. A pretty presumptuous premise.

The village is under the thumb of a baron on whose estate about half the village is employed. His wife can not stand him and flees with her kids to her family's estate. The doctor is an extreme misogynist screwing the town midwife whom he despises, the town pastor has 6 kids who are ruled with SS precision and intolerance, etc.

Film begins with everyone wondering why someone strung a piano wire between two trees that the doctor gallops between every day on his horse. Horse is killed and the doctor seriously hurt. Then they wonder why a small child is found strung up upside down and tortured. Later the town's midwife finds her mentally retarded 5 year old boy beaten with serious eye damage.

Who is doing all these mean things around the village?

A very well done but bleak and dreary film. It will not make you feel good and may leave you wondering how some old school teacher thinks he can explain the brutality of the generation of Germans that gave us the Holocaust and WWII.

Rent it with lots of popcorn and a good stiff drink....and I only drink wine. Have a friend with you to cheer you up afterwards.