The White Ribbon: PG: disturbing content, violence, sexuality; 2:15

 $ $ $  (out of $5)

 By John M. Urbancich, Sun News February 25, 2010, 2:44AM

It already has won a Golden Globe and the Cannes Palme d’Or, and it is a favorite for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Regardless, “The White Ribbon” mostly fails to wrap you up in anything but 145 minutes of colorless monotony.

This latest offering from acclaimed Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke (“Cache”) ever so slowly presents what could be a true story — at least, that’s what an old narrator explains — before a series of unsettling events in a German farming village unfolds.

A doctor is seriously injured when someone sets a wire to trip the horse on which he is riding. Then, in not so quick order: a poor woman is killed in a bizarre sawmill accident; one youth is kidnapped and beaten; a barn burns down; and a mentally disabled boy is attacked and left practically sightless.

Of course, a few more disturbing incidents occur behind closed doors in this pre-WWI tale of isolation and imminent doom. It seems that everyone in town, including most of the children, hides secrets which can psychologically scar, torture and perhaps even inspire murder.

Writer/director Haneke shoots it all in glistening black and white, but, just as in the original version of “Funny Games” in 1997 and his English remake in 2007, this quietly violent story, with stern and creepy parenting at the core, is told too bleakly to entertain. Its cold and gray resolution also may leave viewers more bewildered than informed. Untie this “White Ribbon” at your own risk.

Read more by John M. Urbancich at http://jmuvies.blogspot.com/