Last night I watched The White Ribbon on DVD. There's a good discussion of it here. It's set in 1913-1914 and is sort of a cross between Larkin's "This Be the Verse" (without the humour) and the opposite of "MCMXIV." It's more "So much corruption even then" than "Never such innocence again."
Chris Bertram calls it beautiful (I'm not sure whether he means this purely visually or not) but also writes that: "The monochrome imagery is often superb, but a definite digital flavour remained in the tonality: a very small flaw in a terrific movie." I wouldn't say it's really beautiful to look at. It's well done, but seemed tense-looking to me, which I assumed was deliberate. Perhaps I'm projecting. It isn't dark in a noir-ish way, but there's enough darkness to sustain an uneasy feeling. But what do I know.
Warning: black and white, subtitles, and fairly long.
4.5 stars out of 5.
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