Opinions on The White Ribbon

Hello it's Melissa and this is my first blog.

The movie The White Ribbon is a foreign film which takes place in a german town after WWI has just ended. It's an interesting film for many reasons but in particular they utilized black and white film to really give the audience a sense for the time period. In the beginning of the movie the town's doctor gets into an "accident" on his horse and dies. Technically,  the horse tripped on a thin wire that was tied across two trees. When the accident first occurred the wire was present but when the police officer came back to examine the wire it was missing. Now in the beginning of the movie they stated that the doctor takes the same route home every day. I believe that the accident was a setup, and that someone wished to cause harm to the doctor. Hopefully we will be able to discover who really put that wire there.

Also in the movie, we get the opportunity to examine the family life of someone who would have been living in this time period. It's interesting how no matter what, the father was considered the undisputed head of the household, even if he was being to harsh. At one point in the movie, before the children went to bed, they shook hands with their parents. I believe  a handshake was taken place my a hug in our society today. I found it odd that the children had to address their parents in such a formal matter. This society seems do focussed on innocence and purity. The children's mother would tie a symbolic white ribbon around their wrists to remind them of this. This family structure is very outdated now but maybe it worked for them better than we think.

This idea that the children must always obey their parents gets a little bit out of hand in one part of the movie. The children disobeyed their curfew and each got ten lashes on their backs. They also had to go to bed without dinner, which was very wasteful of the meal their mother had prepared for them. Because of this, one of the children decided to walk on the edge of the railing of a bridge to give god an opportunity to kill him for what he had done. When nothing happened he exclaimed that god must be pleased with him even though he disobeyed his parents. This idea is ludicrous and yet the child, at his young age, believed this to be a true test of god's will.