The White Ribbon (2009)

★ 7.5 2h 24m 1,128 votes IMDb
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An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI.

The White Ribbon

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Cast

Christian Friedel
Christian Friedel as The School Teacher Age 47 · Magdeburg, German Democratic Republic [now Germany] Christian Friedel was born on March 9, 1979 in Magdeburg, East Germany [now Saxony-Anhalt, Germany]. He is an actor and music artist, known for The Zone of Interest (2023), Babylon Berlin (2017), and...
Ernst Jacobi
Ernst Jacobi as The School Teacher as an Old Man (voice) Died 2022 · Berlin, Germany Ernst Jacobi (July 11, 1933 - June 23, 2022) was a German actor. Jacobi was born in Berlin. After Abitur, he completed his acting training in Berlin and also took lessons in Paris.
Leonie Benesch
Leonie Benesch as Eva Age 34 · Hamburg, Germany Leonie Benesch (born April 22, 1991) is a German actress who has played roles in major productions including Babylon Berlin and The Crown, as well as Around the World in 80 Days. She is currently base...
Ulrich Tukur
Ulrich Tukur as The Baron Age 68 · Viernheim, Germany Ulrich Tukur (born Ulrich Scheurlen, July 29, 1957 in Viernheim) is a German actor and musician. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ulrich Tukur, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contr...
Ursina Lardi
Ursina Lardi as Marie Louise Age 55 · Samedan, Graubünden, Switzerland Ursina Lardi is a Swiss actress, best known for playing the baroness, Marie-Louise in The White Ribbon. Lardi studied acting at the Academy of Performing Arts Ernst Busch in Berlin and played at vario...
Burghart Klaußner
Burghart Klaußner as The Pastor Age 76 · Berlin, Germany Burghart Klaußner was born on September 13, 1949 in Berlin, Germany. He is an actor, known for The Edukators (2004), The White Ribbon (2009) and The People vs. Fritz Bauer (2015).

Audience Reviews

CinemaSerf 7/10 May 12, 2024
It all starts when the local doctor (Rainer Bock) is knocked from his horse by some wire carefully strung between two trees. Incapacitated and sent to the (not so) nearby hospital, his is just the start of some fairly brutal mishaps that befall this small rural community as Europe drifts towards the start of the Great War. It's a sort of feudal existence for this community were everything stems from the baron (Ulrich Tukur). When his young son is violently assaulted, tensions run high in the village and as more atrocities emerge they all start to turn on each other and suspicions run high. It might be, though, that the children of the pastor might hold the key. That's what the narrator, and rather naive teacher (Christian Friedl) eventually concludes, but as he investigates as surreptitiously as he can, we find a great deal more going on amidst a village of child molesting, cruelty, adultery and basically anything that could easily contribute to the negative mindset of those carrying out these acts of pretty calculated wickedness. Each of the villagers has their moment in the cinematic sun as we are taken, almost door to door, on a tour of their foibles and peccadilloes. It delivers quite a potent look at the almost, sometimes literal, incestuous nature of country life where people live in fear of losing their patronage and their survival depends on the harvest - and that depends on a God who is represented by Burghart Klaußner's enigmatically characterised pastor. This is a conflicted man more concerned with a status quo than necessarily with the truth. There is mystery here, but that rather fades into the background of quite a disturbing character study that is puzzling and intriguing.

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