Dance me to the end of love: Community and impending doom in Michael Haneke's Das wei

ISSN： 2040-0594

Source： Studies in European Cinema, Vol.9, Iss.2-3, 2012-09, pp. : 109-121

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Abstract

Das weiße Band: Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte/The White Ribbon is perhaps Michael Haneke's most thorough investigation into the human psyche - a searing meditation on mankind's propensity towards violence and wanton destruction - its setting and subject matter make it seemingly ripe for allegorical analyses on Nazism and societal decay, yet searches for allegory, though enticing, may prove fruitless in the long run. At no point is there a direct reference to the nation in the film - Germany itself is curiously absent from the narrative - and so instead, I posit that we must look elsewhere in order to properly quantify and engage with Haneke's wilfully ambiguous text. In this article, I outline discernible strands of national leaning in The White Ribbon, by contrasting the film with a somewhat unlikely source; John Ford's My Darling Clementine, a production that displays no such ambiguities in its avowal of national identity. Ford's seminal Western may seem an unorthodox choice from which to compare and contrast the work of Haneke, yet in closely examining key scenes from both films, the article will shed new light on an often polemical, yet ceaselessly fascinating filmmaker.