The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke's depiction of rural Germany on the eve of World War I — and how the cute (if dangerous) little children of that era grew into the Nazis and their followers of the 1930s and 1940s — received 13 nominations for the Lolas, the German version of the Academy Awards.
In the Lolas' top categories, the 2010 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee (which lost to the Argentinean drama The Secret in Their Eyes) is up for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (also Haneke), Best Actor (Burghart Klaussner) and Best Actress (Susanne Lothar).
Additionally, cinematographer Christian Berger is up for a Lola as well. Several weeks ago, Berger became the first cinematographer to win an American Society of Cinematographers Award for a film not in the English language. At the Oscars, he lost out to Mauro Fiore for the less arty but much showier (and infinitely more popular) Avatar.
Palme d'Or and European Film Award winner The White Ribbon was the favorite at the Oscars and is the favorite at the Lolas. Don't expect another upset.
Photo: The White Ribbon (Films du Losange / Sony Pictures Classics)
Thanks Finn, I got your point, but I still think that whenever a country goes to war is not because of the results of a repressive family educational system but a bigger and more powerful, speculative structure called Federal Government. In Latin America (where I'm from) there are many extreme conservative patriarchal societies, not to mention Asia or Middle East countries but their conflicts are not even close to WWI, WWII or Nazism.
To my way of thinking, it's less the children's misbehavior that is being called into question than the pedagogical system that breeds such repression and self-loathing. Not to mention the patriarchal society itself which is so overbearing yet rotten at the very core. Thus are the children's psyches so twisted that they are fodder for the political stylings of Nazism.
I think this movie has great cinematography but honestly I didn´t understand the relationship between some misbehaving children with the WWI and the nazis, children misbehave and fight with each other everywhere, even in pacifist countries.