The best new work I've seen at the festival so far is Michael Haneke's Das weisse band (The White Ribbon). That shouldn't surprise me too much since it did win the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year. The film is a meditation on the cycle of violence that begets more violence in a small German village just after the turn of the (20th) century. Handsomely mounted in crisp black and white, part of the reason it is so remarkable is because of Haneke's deftness at eliciting consistently strong performances from his entire cast. Not that one shouldn't expect it from a major director, but when the cast is as large as this one, and a significant portion of the actors are very young children, it is even more conspicuous.
