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You never forget a film byMichael Haneke. Once seen, itsimages, crimes, and violationsremain lodged in memory, theirdisturbing nature bringing into

question concepts one normally chooses toavoid entirely. Implicating the malaise ofmodern society, and people’s unwillingnessto be honest with themselves, the equallyrevered and vilified Austrian filmmaker hasexplored the tendency of secrets andrepressed emotion to result in catastrophe.Expect no satisfaction from a Haneke film,as disquieting questions are raised, neveranswered, and left to wander in one’s mindin perpetuity. This month’s The White Rib-bon, set in northern Germany at the dawnof World War I, is the auteur’s first historicalpicture, and marks his return to German-language film after nearly a decade of pre-dominantly French productions.

Haneke’s first feature film was The Sev-enth Continent (1989), which depicted therepetitive, lifeless day-to-day of an Austrianhusband, wife, and daughter, who ultimatelycommit suicide. His follow-up was Benny’sVideo (1992), about an indifferent teenageboy who spends most of his life amid hisvideo equipment, and whose fascinationwith the slaughter of a pig transitions to hismurdering of an adolescent girl, and the ulti-mate framing of his own parents for the act.The third installment of what Haneke termshis Glaciation Trilogy, is 71 Fragments of aChronology of Chance, a documentation ofthe sterile, lackluster lives of disparate char-acters, all to be involved in a mass slaying atan Austrian bank. Haneke then releasedFunny Games (1997), the story of a wealthyfamily taken hostage and killed by two cul-tured, well-groomed young men in golfingattire, a film the director later remade in theU.S., nearly shot for shot, with NaomiWatts, Tim Roth, and Michael Pitt (2008). Aswith many of Haneke’s films, the violenceitself takes place slightly off-screen, with thebloody after-effects serving as the subjectof the driven director’s interminable focus.Both versions of Funny Games were rifewith audience walkouts and livid criticismfor their cold-blooded brutality. The movieis painfully difficult to watch, yet it’s onethat Haneke stands by so staunchly that hemade it twice.

As Austrian financing began to dry up, itwas internationally acclaimed thespianJuliette Binoche who ensured Haneke’screative future. The screen star was takenwith the director’s style of quiet observationand the insistence that the audience draw itsown conclusions, and invited him to collabo-rate with her in France. The result was CodeUnknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Jour-neys (2000), set primarily in Paris, whichobserved the road to loss begun with a sin-

gle act of thoughtless cruelty. Haneke’s sec-ond French production, The Piano Teacher(2001), proved to be his most successful filmto date. Spurred by Isabelle Huppert’sintense portrayal of a socially isolated andsexually disturbed music professor, the con-troversial piece succeeded in Haneke’s goalof being obscene yet devoid of titillation, andbecame an international art-house hit. Thepost-apocalyptic Time of the Wolf (2003) fol-lowed, after which Haneke and Binocheteamed up once more with Caché (2005), thecritically acclaimed investigation into a child-hood secret that tears a well-to-do, intellec-tual husband and wife apart. The buriedmemory alienates them both from their son,and leaves a suicide in its wake. Caché wonnumerous prizes, including three fromCannes and five from the European FilmAwards — both including Best Director.

Also a success at Cannes, the GoldenPalm-winning The White Ribbon is a black-and-white vision of a Protestant village hier-archy, with the wealthy Baron and his familyat the top, his advisors and servants perchedprecariously beneath him, and the farmersunderfoot. The questions begin with themysterious, malicious wounding of the towndoctor, which offers the first hint of percolat-ing fury. As the crime fades from the eyes ofthe law, and further acts of unexplainedvengeance take its place, one begins to sus-pect that the village Pastor’s rigid devotion tohis children’s discipline may be just the kindof repression that leads to violence. The taleis presented as a memory of the localschoolteacher, who recalls these events asthe circumstances under which he found thewoman he would one day marry. ThusHaneke has designed an unsettling explo-ration of the origin of hatred and the seedsof fascism in the context of a love story.

We meet with Haneke and his interpreterto discuss the ideas behind The White Rib-bon, and his thoughts on the importance ofunanswered questions and discomfortingcinema.

Venice: A common theme in your filmsseems to be that the origin of human cru-elty lies in the thoughts and emotion thatwe suppress. In The White Ribbon, thesuppression of the spirit leads to the cor-ruption of a community — and, likely, toan entire country later on.

Michael Haneke: The basic idea of thisfilm was that in an area where you have a lotof repression and suffering of people — andhumiliation — how this lays the groundwork,such that ideologies can be established forthese people, because they need somethingto hold onto. So the issue for me is how anideology can form itself, and it’s always beenwhen an idea that was introduced suddenlybecomes absolute. This is for all kinds of

ideologies. The idea can be good or bad, butonce it becomes absolute, in all cases, itbecomes dangerous. It becomes very strict,and can be used for radicalism. In general,morals or restrictions are not bad in them-selves, but the moment you use them astools to repress other people, then theybecome dangerous. And this is applicable toright-wing ideology, left-wing ideology, reli-gion, and politics. You could make a film in apresent-day Middle Eastern country andshow how the Muslim religion has been usedas a tool for repression. The purpose is thesame, but the film would look different sim-ply because of the setting. For me, it’simportant that it is taken in a broader sense,not just Nazi Germany or right-wing politics.

What are the specific elements that arerepressed in people, and how is that usedto gain control over them?

Every individual liberty. A basic example isa dog that isn’t trained, and isn’t housebro-ken yet. I like the word “housebroken,”because it already has the word “broken” init. Everyone who has personal freedom andlives that way, even if it is a child, it getsdestroyed, or broken up, to fit into society.

At what point does that become dan-gerous?

That’s a delicate question, because it’svery hard to measure, or almost impossibleto measure, because it takes place on somany different levels. And there’s always thequestion: At what point is it — like in this vil-lage in White Ribbon or in any society —what is the moment that your own dignity isin their control? With every humiliation,begins hatred. And every education con-tains this element of humiliation.

Once you have this resentment, orhatred, that builds up because of thesebroken liberties, how does that make iteasier for a large power to dictate theactions of the people?

Because we haven’t the power to resist.We learn our behavior when we are little,and it’s very difficult to learn other thingsafterwards. I always ask myself why the Ital-ian fascism was so different from the Ger-man fascism. It was the same ideologybehind it, but the way it was acted out inthe country was very different.

What were some of the differences? One of the biggest differences is the con-

nection to religion. In northern Germany,which is where this film is set, it’s a veryProtestant area, and this religion is verystrict, with a focus on order. “I just followedmy orders.” While in Italy, for example, thispolitic was connected with the Catholic reli-gion, which appears to be totally different

Michael Haneke: The Horror of IdeologyBY ANDREW FISH PHOTOGRAPHY DAVID MIEZAL

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I think that art is not there to comfort, or to calm people down.Art is there to raise questions.

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from Germany. There was a German leftistterrorist group called the Baader MeinhofGroup, in the ’70s mostly, and these twoleading women, Ulrike Meinhof and GudrunEnsslin both came from families where theirfathers were Protestant pastors. So there wasa very rigorous order to their society, morerigorous than the way the Catholic Churchwould demand from people. Their terroristgroup started out with things that were per-ceived as positive, because they wereagainst the Vietnam War. They were againstcapitalism, and then they started to throwbombs into big department stores, and itbecame more and more dangerous. Theytook people as hostages and they killed peo-ple. Key figures in industry were capturedand killed, so more and more they movedfrom criticism to a leftist terrorist group. Andthe roots of these two key figures’ behaviorwas this Protestantic, rigorous behavior andits demands. So there was a moral behindtheir actions, but it was so rigorous that itbecame dangerous. To bring it back to thisfilm, it is not a film against Protestantism, andit’s not a film against religion in general —and if it were a film in an Arabian country, itwouldn’t be against Islam — the film isagainst the process of ideas becoming ide-ologies, which become so rigorouslyenforced that you cannot breathe anymore.And that’s the context of the film. Themoment this idea becomes an ideology, theperson who is against this ideology is anenemy — and that’s the moment when thedanger kicks in.

And is this what led to the rise of theThird Reich?

It’s one of the roots. I cannot make a filmabout [all the elements of] fascism; it’s toocomplex. [laughs] But you can see in this vil-lage the whole structure of the society, fromthe Baron to the poor people, so it’s a bit ofa mirror of society at this time. It mirrorssociety in general, looking at this particularvillage — because all of them are workingfor this baron, and he’s the one who has theabsolute power in the village. And this hier-archy of people is the same as you’ll find, ina broader sense, in the entire society. It’slike looking at society with a magnifyingglass. I tried to create a model, or a sample.It’s not the only seed of radicalism, but it’sone of the seeds.

And it’s something that was exploited bythe government to control its people.

It’s always this way! [laughs] Everywhere.The people who have the power use the ide-ologies to get what they want. I painted a pic-ture of the old Europe, not just of Germany.Because the First World War was the coun-tries’ big break with the past and the historyof Europe, to a new era, and that was a veryimportant thing. People say that the SecondWorld War was only a follow-up to the firstone. The first one was the much more impor-

tant clash of culture, and of the situation inwhich politics and church were completelycombined. The God of Nietzsche died withthe 19th century. [laughs]

In the film, there's a scene where thepastor’s daughter is standing in the door-way of the classroom, eating an apple andwatching the kids misbehave, with nosense of responsibility, though she knowsthat this behavior isn’t acceptable. Is thisabsence of responsibility the kind of thingthat can lead to violence without remorse?

It was not intended by me! [laughs] She islooking; she is the only one who is at thedoor, so she’s there to see when the teacherand her father come. So that’s your interpre-tation. But I’m hoping for every interpreta-tion! Most of my work is creating situationsthat can be seen from different points ofview, because it’s on you to decide, not onme. [laughs]

It was unclear in the film as to whichacts of cruelty were committed by whichpeople, except for the scene where thedaughter went to her father’s office, tookout the bird, cut its head off, and left it onhis desk. That was one of the only eventsthat’s straightforward in the whole movie.It was very clear.

Good!

What creates the kind of personalitythat can do something like that?

Every one of us is capable of this kind ofcruelty. There is a famous quote fromGoethe: “There is no crime of which I do notdeem myself capable.” I think he was a wiseman. [laughs] I think that you need not be aspecial character to do this.

But most of us don’t actually do it. Ça va!

A child could think about this terriblething because she’s angry with her father,but this child did it.

First of all, it’s good that everyone is notcommitting these kinds of crimes. [laughs]But that doesn’t mean that everyone is notcapable of that. Usually, the mainstreamcinema has these simple questions andanswers. There is the one who is the victim,and the one who commits the crime, andthis is always very clear — and that calmsdown the audience, because it makes themfeel comfortable. I think that art is not thereto comfort, or to calm people down. Art isthere to raise questions. The politicianshave the answers, because they want to bereelected. [laughs] But art is not like politics.I don’t want to lie to the audience with sim-ple ideas or solutions. Life is very complex!In all of my films, I always try — I don’tknow if I achieve it — to approach the way Isee life in a very complex way. Complexand full of contradictions.

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With more questions than answers.Yes, of course! If I go to the movies, I

don’t like to get pre-formulated, or pre-fab-ricated answers for everything. I like to getinto a situation where I can start thinking ina new way, or that I can reflect on in a newway. I like the inspiration of the cinema, andnot so much the simple answers. And withbooks, it’s the same thing. A book that sim-ply tells me the way things are in the worldis ridiculous.

You’re not interested in going to a filmand feeling satisfied that you’ve seen it.

That’s lost time! [laughs]

You’ve said that that kind of satisfac-tion makes a film easy to forget.

Of course. I leave and I have forgottenthe film. A film is more like a ramp whenyou’re skiing. It’s for taking off, but thejumping and the flying, the audience has todo. You have to construct the ramp verywell, so they can jump!

And then we’re responsible for takingoff with the ideas?

Yes!

What is your motivation to encouragepeople to think about these issues of sup-pressed emotion and its dangers?

These are the things that are all aroundus in our daily lives. These are the thingswe have to deal with, all the time.

You said once that the truth is alwayshidden, and that there are thousands oftruths, and it’s just a matter of perspec-tive. Can you talk a little about that?

Do you know what the truth is? I don’t!What is the truth? It’s a question of point ofview. If you read some books about history,and you read German books and Frenchbooks about the same time period, everybook has its own truth — which is the oppo-site from the other one! So, what is the truth?I don’t know. It’s a question of the responsi-bility you have to yourself to be honest. Butto be honest in what you say and do is stillsomething different from truth, because it isconnected to yourself. The only thing we cantry to do is to be honest. And that’s a lot!

You have also expressed an idea aboutpeople’s fighting for a false ideal — likehow people are willing to fight for an idealof their family, even if the ideal isn’t basedin reality.

There is a line in Caché about what we arewilling to do to not lose what we have. Andunfortunately, that’s true, because it’s hard to

lose something, and it’s hard to be honest,and give up things. In Caché, Georges ishiding something bad that he did when hewas young, and he behaves badly nowbecause he is afraid he will lose something.So people continue to fight for a false idealbecause they still think it makes sense tofight for it — for themselves. They don’twant to give up what they have. It’s like theFirst World and the Third World. We don’tlike to give up our comfort. It’s the same

thing. We find a lot of excuses for why wedon’t want to give things up, but the fact isthat we just don’t want to.

What I found most frustrating aboutCaché was that no matter how much itwas put right in front of him that he haddone a terrible thing as a child, Georgesrefuses to accept that he did somethingwrong.

This is the guilt. When he was a child —and all children are egoistic — what he didwas not very sympathetic, but I can under-stand it. The little child is the little prince ofthe family, and he didn’t want to lose that.For a five-year-old child, maybe. But as anadult person, looking at what he did, and toinsist that he did nothing wrong — that’s hisguilt. It’s not about his guilt as a child.

It seems like his life, and the life of hiswife and son, would have been so muchbetter if he had accepted it and dealtwith it.

I agree! But life is different.

Your films deal with the unfortunateways in which a lot people live their lives,and the resulting consequences. What doyou think people can do in their relation-ships and in their lives that would makethings better?

I’m not God. [laughs] But like I said before:to try to be honest. That’s not a little thing;there are a lot of things to do! It’s easy to sayand difficult to do. I don’t have the answersto the big questions of human life. I can justlook at something precisely, and push yournose against it — and my nose, too!

Do you learn more about the ideasyou’re exploring as you’re writing them,and as you put the film together?

Always during the writing. The writing isthe creative process; the rest is hard work.

So as you’re writing, you’re learningmore about the ideas that you’reexploring?

I try to see a little bit clearer. It’s difficult. I

don’t know if I’m clearer now than before Iwrote this play, or another play. I can’t say. Iknow very little, so I try! [laughs]

Can you talk a little about your history? I was born in Germany, but I spent my

childhood in Austria. I studied philosophythere. Then I went to Germany, where I wasinvolved in television. I developed thescripts, and was involved in the productionof television projects. I did this for years after

my studies, and then I started to direct the-ater for some years. Then I directed my firsttelevision project. And for fifteen or twentyyears, I directed ten or twelve televisionfilms, and a lot of plays. Then at the age of46, I did my first film. [laughs] Now I’m 67. Ilearned everything from scratch! For me, the-ater was very important because that’swhere you really learn to work with actors. Infilm, you don’t have time to learn it; you haveto know it. The background of German, orEuropean theater is that you have muchmore time to work with the actors. It’s differ-ent from here in Los Angeles. So when peo-ple say that the actors are very good in myfilms, I think it’s because I worked withactors for weeks and months in the theater.Because in theater there, you have muchmore time, and many more possibilities to trythings, and to start all over again. So youreally work with the actors.

You’ve done movies in German and inFrench. Are there any major differencesbetween directing in the two languages?

Yes, I speak German better than French!This film, The White Ribbon, is the first timein ten years that I’ve directed in German,and I was much more relaxed than in theprevious ten years. My French is not sobad, but I did one film here, the remake ofFunny Games, in English. And now you hearmy English, so it was very, very difficult.[laughs] It’s not about explaining things,because I can show it. The problem is scan-ning what’s going on around me, and beingaware of what people are saying. In Ger-many, I hear everything, because it’s mynative tongue. The American film was themost difficult. I did four films in French, andin school I had French, but no English. SoFrench is easier for me.

Are you planning your next project? Yes, I have one, but I have to write it

now, and I’m always giving interviews![laughs] It’s a film about elderly people —80 years and older. It will be in French. Thehumiliation of this period. Not a very funnything. ▼

I don’t have the answers to the big questions of human life. I can just look at something precisely, and push

your nose against it — and my nose, too!

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