The Enigma of The White Ribbon

In Michael Haneke’s Das weiße Band (The White Ribbon [2009]), the color white is used to represent the enduring enigma of twentieth-century fascism. While white is traditionally associated with childhood innocence, purity, and renewal, Haneke uses the color’s other, more complex, meanings to explore the roots of fascistic behavior: in punishment, secrecy, and the assault on innocence. This essay interrogates the complexities and ambiguities of what it means to be ‘post-Fascist’ through the use of the color white.