With its austere black-and-white cinematography and meticulously composed frames, "The White Ribbon" lunges hungrily for serious art-film credibility. Don't be fooled.

Writer-director Michael Haneke ("Funny Games," "Cache") has made a specialty of trying to sell essentially shallow, unexceptional ideas with shocking or heavily aestheticized imagery. "The White Ribbon," recently nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, is no exception. Set in a small northern German town on the cusp of World War I, the macabre story features a community riven by class resentment, mutual suspicion and everyday lies that come to the fore when a series of mysterious violent crimes occur.