Page - 57 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

Punishment and Crime | 57www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 47–61 of The White Ribbon. We are thrown into the Unjust World, and despairingly search for a way out. In the Unjust World there is no (poetic) justice, no hope, no redemption. We have methods that prevent us from falling into this unjust world, but we lack resources to help us escape. What also is disconcerting is that we are not allowed to look away. We are confronted by all those self-righteous people who create and uphold a stifling community. And we are also not allowed to look away from the effects of the crimes. On the contrary, suffering and the consequences of immoral acts are shown relentlessly. We may seek shelter in the idea that the film is just a film and its story is fictional. But the problem is that all these characters are too familiar, and their actions are cruel but not unlikely. The film does not show us the aberrations of human nature; it shows us the evil roots of human nature, which we know about but do not want to be confronted with. It shows us who we really are. Reasoning the depiction away as fiction does not work. The characters may be fictional, but the message is not. And at the end of the film reality hits hard, with the realisation that all this (could have) happened at the outset of the First World War. The First World War is not a fiction. LEHRSTÜCK DOGVILLE How did the spectator become entangled in this Unjust World? To clarify this predicament, it is helpful to compare the film to a similar Lehrstück, Dogville, that portrays a similar small village isolated from a more “civilised” town.19 Just like in The White Ribbon, one of the protagonists openly sets a moral example for the community, a lesson from which to learn. The film Dogville, by Lars von Trier, is well known for its aesthetics: the con- tours of the buildings of the village are painted on the floor. And beyond some props, the scenery is only suggested. Dogville is a fictional American village in the 1930s. A narrator tells a story about this village, where the main character, Tom Edison, philosophises about the possibility of showing the moral nobility of the village. When Grace arrives, seeking refuge from her persecutors, Edison and the villagers see her as a perfect testcase for their moral “experiment”. They welcome her, hide her and take care of her. Then, as a reward for their 19 There is a long tradition of films showing the horrors of a closed society. Works by Lars von Trier, Michael Haneke, Bela Tarr and Rainer Werner Fassbinder come readily to mind. Particularly unsettling are the films The Baby of Macon (Peter Greenaway, NL/FR/UK/DE 1993), Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen (Even Dwarfs started small, Werner Herzog, DE 1970), and Die Siebtelbauern (The In- heritors, Stefan Ruzowitzky, AT/DE 1998). Dogville has been chosen for comparison because it too has a protagonist who provides a moral test-case for a poor, small community. Also, both films are fic- tional but in the end make a link to reality, in the case of Dogville by referring – through documentary photos – to the Great Depression.