The storyteller, a rural teacher, recalled a series of strange events in a village in northern Germany on the eve of World War I. When the doctor tripped over a rope while riding home, and people immediately launched an investigation, the priest gave corporal punishment to two children who returned late and tied them with white ribbons symbolizing purity. The next day, a sharecropper's wife was killed in an accident. The village teacher found the boy Martin walking high by the river. Martin said he wanted to know if God would punish him. The teacher and Eva, the babysitter of the baron's family, met and made a good impression on each other. Soon the baron presided over the harvest ceremony, and the son of the dead peasant woman thought the baron was responsible for his mother's death and destroyed the baron's vegetable garden to vent his anger. The possible perpetrators of all these vicious incidents have not been investigated for a long time, and arson and beatings against children still occur. After the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand the following year, the teacher seemed to find some clues, but they were strongly stopped by the priest. The film won the Palme d'Or and Phoebe Award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.
7.8
