A Conclusion of The White Ribbon.

This is Diana.

I am really glad that we got to finish watching The White Ribbon in class on Monday. It had a very slow moving plot, but that really did add to the melancholy, serious vibe. Something that is intriguing to me is that the film does not contain any music; we hear only the sounds that the characters hear which hold the audience in the plot even more.

The beginning is slow, but the conclusion picks up and many things hit the audience practically all at once. I could feel myself cringe at some parts, like when the kids are hit, the image of the dead bird, and the sexual abuse from the doctor.

The film focuses on the children’s up-bringing in the village. We can tell that the ambivalence of the adults and parents cause the children to act out violently. This is because guilt, shame, and sin are pounded into their heads constantly. The Pastor bullies his son into confessing that he masturbates and ties him to his bed when he sleeps as to restrain Martin from the temptation to touch himself. Martin now has to repress the sexual urges of puberty so he doesn’t feel shame and embarrassment.  

The ambivalence of the village contributes to the strange, violent acts that someone is carrying out within the village.  The doctor sexually abuses his daughter, Anni, and verbally abuses the midwife, Ms. Wagner. He uses Ms. Wagner as an object to fill his sexual needs, care for his children, and to keep up with his medical practice. His ambivalent attitude shows when he decides that he has had enough of her “flabbiness” and essentially tells her to die. Ambivalence is also apparent when the doctor doesn’t try to talk to his young son when he gets back from the hospital, even though he knows his son is very upset over the matter.

The ambivalent character comes from Sigmund Freud’s book, Totem and Taboo. It addresses the idea that people feel ambivalent about most people in their lives, but will not consciously admit to it. The things that people hate in the ones they love is suppressed, not thought about but projected onto someone or something else. Maybe that is the way with the doctor; as we see in the abuses of Ms. Wagner, the way he sexually uses his daughter, or how he ignores his son.

The children of the village act out in ways that could hurt themselves or others. We are left to suspect that the children, especially Klara and Martin, are the ones that are committing the violent crimes. But why isn’t the village really getting involved? Why aren’t the police heavily involved? Maybe this also shows the ambivalence of the village as a whole. When Klara cut the head off of her father’s bird, why didn’t he try to find out who had done such a terrible thing?

The film leaves us off with no concrete answer to who commits the crimes. That is for the audience to figure out through their own confusion. Overall it was a great film that exhibits a heavy-handed society, a deeply controlling super- ego and their strong influence on the psyche of the children.