Haneke Wins Palme d’Or

Some reactions from the web:

From what little we can tell, it’s basically like The Seventh Seal meets A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy. Minus any comedy or sex. (the awl)

A gorgeous but too long (at two and a half hours) black-and white treatise on bad behavior in a pre-World War I German village that recalls the darkest films of Ingmar Bergman. (Anne Thompson)

Worth noting (and rarely noted) from Todd McCarthy’s review at Variety, “The pic’s full German title translates to The White Ribbon: A German Children’s Story.” Another Haneke film has a well-known short and lesser-known long title: Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys.

Mike D’Angelo describes the film as acetic and joyless in a podcast interview at GreenCine Daily. He also tells a story about a viewer who tried and failed to get into the party for The White Ribbon in Cannes (an absurd concept – like going to a Schindler’s List party). His reaction, “Once again, Michael Haneke has denied me any possibility of pleasure.”