Director Michael Haneke won the Palme d'Or for this immaculate monochrome mystery set in the bucolic north German village of Eichwald on the eve of the Great War. There's a hint of Heimat about the narrated, linear action that links the fates of baron Ulrich Tukur, pastor Burghart Klaussner and the increasingly disaffected underlings in their care. There's also a sense of the first buds of Nazism flourishing in the populace's unquestioning adherence to aristocratic authoritarianism and Protestant patriarchy. But, with only the romance between schoolteacher Christian Friedel and governess Leonie Benesch retaining any sort of innocence, the overriding mood of the film is one of malice and menace. The ensemble performances are as outstanding as Christoph Kanter's production design and Christian Berger's photography. But it's Haneke's vision and control that imbues the ever-more suspenseful and harrowing events with an oppressive sense of psychological and historical significance.

An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI.