The White Ribbon ending explained

What happens

The war arrives, the teacher fights, returns and marries Eva. The doctor and midwife have left the village. No one was ever proven guilty. The narrator offers his account as only a possibility.

The last image

The village congregation stands together in church as news of Sarajevo is announced, and the film ends on that quiet gathering.

Two readings

1 · The children did itThe teacher's suspicion of the pastor's older children is the only theory the film offers, though it never confirms it.

2 · A guess, nothing moreThe narrator openly calls his version a possibility, so the film may be warning you not to trust any tidy answer.

What it says

The film withholds a culprit because the culprit is not the point. It cares about what a community of strict authority taught its children, and what it chose not to say. The war's arrival widens that unease into history without explaining it.