The Reader [DVD]

The Reader is adapted from a novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink (a novel I have not read, and one I must add to my ever growing reading list), whether it is a faithful adaptation, I cannot say. Regardless, the film has powerful messages and raises important moral questions which are incredibly difficult to answer.

The basic plot is easy enough to lay out: it is 1950's Germany; a young boy of fifteen, Michael Berg (David Kross), is sick on the streets, when an older woman in her late thirties, Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), finds him and helps him home. After recovering from his illness, Michael goes back to thank Hannah in her home, and an affair begins. It lasts for one summer, and Hanna abruptly leaves without a word. Six years later, Michael, now a law student, comes across his former lover in a war trial, where Hanna is one of six female defendants - all of whom are former guards of the concentration camps. A secret, that Hanna deems so shameful that she would rather be found guilty of mass murder than disclose it, secures the tragedy of this highly emotive and moving film.

The film's narrative is told through flashbacks (though the narrative eventually catches up to the present time) from the older Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) and although it was so many years ago, although it was only one summer in his youth, it becomes evident that he has never moved on and has affected his whole life.

The first warning I would give about this film is to not watch it with your parents or other relatives - the first hour of the film has very graphic sex scenes and includes full frontal male nudity. This part of the film is a bit slow going, and since I had not read a single thing about the film before I sat down (all I knew was that Winslet and Fiennes starred) I began to sigh and wonder if I had unwittingly walked into a softcore porn film. It becomes obvious later on why so much time is spent on the actual affair, so although it gets a bit tiresome, its effects come into play and makes the film a lot more satisfying in its full context.

It is the first time leap, six years after the affair, that the film really begins to pick up. The trial itself is the highlight of the film. It is superbly written and the performances are inspired. The seminars in which the students and their professor discuss the proceedings of the trial is particularly powerful.

There is not one weak performance in sight, and I could not honestly say who out-acted who out of the three leads. Winslet is always reliable, but her turn as Hanna renders her truly deserving of all the nominations (and wins) she has received. Kross depicts the innoncent love of a fifteen year old boy and the pain that ensues with deep authenticity. Fiennes does not get as much screen time, but he captures it everytime he appears, playing as full grown man but still with the sense of innocence and pained youth which he has never quite been able to get away from.

"What would you have done?" Hanna asks the silent stricken courtroom. The sense of human morality, alongside with contemporary and prior laws, authority driven behaviour, duty, obedience and different cultural beliefs are spun into one when the court asks Hanna why she did not unlock the doors to a burning church with hundreds of Jews inside. The certainty and the obviously matter of fact demeanor that Hannah inhabits on trial raises so many questions: who has the right to judge who? Should a court of a different time, of a different social context condemn actions of others made in the past? But in what circumstances should mass murder be left unpunished? Can anyone possibly understand a person like Hanna? Is it the case that somebody like Hanna who could love, who could feel, that a young boy fell in love with, could honestly have killed hundreds of Jews? Were all the guards not really sadists, criminals and cold-hearted, but normal, ordinary people? These are just some of the questions that this film asks, but cannot find answers to. I doubt the audience will be any closer of the answers.

It is these thought-provoking matters coupled with the human aspect of Michael Berg and how the holocaust affects the following generations that truly makes this film unique, inspiring and moving. This film is unmissable and whilst I imagine it will gain some critics by putting concentration camp guards in the position of sympathy, they may well miss the point that it is not so much about understanding Hanna, but following the journey of a boy who unwittingly fell in love with a former SS guard and trying to come to terms with it.

Having read Bernard Schlink's thoughtful book, I wanted to see 'The Reader', and Kate Winslet's recent triumph at the Golden Globes just added to that. The film is very faithful to the book - only a couple of things are added (one, a visit made by Michael, the central character, as a law student to Auschwitz, a bit questionable, I think ; another, Michael's relationship with his daughter and how it is used in the film, a definite plus). This is the tale of a six-months affair between Michael, a 15-year-old Berliner, in 1958 and Hannah, a sensuous, probably lonely mid-thirties tram conductress, in her small rented flat, and the effect of that affair on the young man in older life. Hannah likes him to read to her, and he does - book after book. The physical side of their relationship is, for him, completely new, exciting and wonderful, and he does fall in love with her ; she also with him. Suddenly she leaves, for a reason which is clear in the book but not really in the film, and the next time he sees her she is in court, on trial for war crimes - she was a camp guard at Auschwitz. He attends the trial as a law student, with his peers and his professor, and her presence in the dock comes as a profound shock. For those who do not know the book I don't want to give away too much, but the trial, which is very absorbing, has a devastating effect on Michael - the moment when he becomes aware of Hannah in court is one of many very powerful moments in the film. Things are not quite as they seem, and he knows it. The book (and the film) follow their lives for another twenty years or so. He re-establishes contact of a kind with her and does things to help, but of course this relationship must remain hidden from everyone he knows, his closest family included, and so it continues to the end of the film, when at last he begins to unburden himself.

The film has great integrity. It is almost totally convincing, in its attention to detail, its tone and the performances of the central actors. Kate Winslet is absolutely marvellous, in a role which is hard-edged but much more sympathetic than you could imagine. It is a performance of great range, but it is never over the top, and some of her best moments are quiet ones, when she has little or nothing to say but conveys much by a look, a gesture, a way of walking even. You can see exactly why the boy would love her, but equally how she came to be a camp guard. The young German actor who plays Bernard, not an easy role at all, measures up well to it, as does Ralph Fiennes as his later self, the troubled lawyer. There is a good cameo from Bruno Ganz (ironically, the actor who was such a marvellous Hitler in 'Downfall') as the law professor. But, Winslet aside, it is the film overall which works, not any one performance in it. There are some wonderful moments - when Michael senses who is on trail, as I said, when Hannah makes a damaging courtroom admission, when she re-establishes contact with him in a way which is both surprising and entirely appropriate, and at the end (I won't be specific, because that would give too much away). All in all, it is an absorbing and sometimes very moving two hours or so, and just as the book does, it forces us to confront the question that Hannah asks the judge in court (beautifully voiced by Winslet, not as a moral challenge but simply as the thing that comes naturally to her mind at that moment - the obvious question) ; what would you have done?

P.S. (23rd. February 2009) - it's very nice to know now that Kate Winslet has won the Oscar for Best Actress to add to her Golden Globe and BAFTA awards - they seem very well justified.

This film brought together two of my favourite subjects, Kate Winslet and World War II. This is a haunting film that is split into three separate periods of time. I won't go into the storyline, that is easy enough to find out about, but Kate Winslet's performance is truly worthy of the Oscar she received for it.

During the early part of the film, Winslet has a love affair with a teenage boy, the awkwardness in their relationship is excellently portrayed and you feel uncomfortable watching this young man fall head over heels for a distant older woman. The horrors of Winslet's past comes into the open and the depiction of a woman performing inhumane acts in the genuine belief that she was only following orders is unnerving. The final part of the film shows Winslet, in her old age, childishly excited as she is contacted once again by the now older teenage boy.

David Cross and Ralph Fiennes provide excellent support and this film leaves you with a small but very real sense of what things were like during the war. There are a million war films out there but few are this thought provoking.