Movie Review: THE READER

The Reader was first written as a novel in German in 1995 and later translated to 40 different languages. The Reader is set in the time frame of post-Holocaust. But it is an alternative perception of the genocide. It offers layers of questions of morality, justice, sexuality, generation gaps etc.

How far will you go to protect a secret? Honestly, how long can we make shame bearable? In the film, Kate Winslet is Hanna Schmitz, a 36 year old tram worker who shares an affair with 15 year old Michael Berg played by David Kross and grows up to be a fine lawyer played by Ralph Fiennes. That's the first secret.

Their romance spans across the summer until one day, Hanna abruptly ends the relationship and disappears. Michael continues his life in torment and emerges into the world as a keen lawyer. Hanna reappears in this pivotal point of Michael's life when he attends 'seminars' at the courtroom where Hanna is on trial for war atrocities as a SS guard.

This is most probably my favourite part of the movie. Everything unravels and you sit there feeling so seared as Michael, yet, as bold as Hanna. As Michael witnesses Hanna telling the truth, he is helpless in knowing the difference between right and wrong. He is torn loving the sensous woman he knew when he was a teenager and ashamed of the woman the world scorns for committing war crimes, treason against humanity. I absolutely love the rawness of Michael's position. Is he as wrong as Hanna is, just because he knows of her and knows her intimately? Should he feel as indignant as the rest of the world? After all, as said in the film, "... there were thousands of camps." Why should your ex-lover be under scrutiny, as much as the others deserve it too? During the trial, he discovers Hanna's secret, Hanna's shame. This could affect Hanna's sentencing. But he witheld and Hanna was sentenced to life imprionment.

Hanna, on the other hand, felt impositioned from the beginning. Her secret forced her into a substitute job she didn't know better than a tram worker as a guard. Yet she was as dedicated a worker to the jobs she took. She doesn't question her morality. In my opinion, the reason she lacked the humanity to potentially stopped herself from participating in the genocide, was because she felt already incapacitated by her secret. Twice while Hanna was trialed, twice I felt I understood her lack of choice. The first was when she was questioned why she didn't reconsider her choice of 10 women to be culled. Collectedly, she replied somewhat along these lines, "How else would you have done it? ... How else would you have made room for the others who came in? There wasn't enough space for everybody." The second, was even more jarring. Hanna was asked why she didn't bother unlocking the church doors when it was aflamed and let the POWs out. "They would have escaped. We were RESPONSIBLE for them! If we let them out, they would have run out, there would have been chaos and they would escape!" I can only agree because I am void of what Hanna possesses.

The film is hypnotic and constantly raises questions and issues I have never came across. Taking into context the the circumstances were of the generations of Germans guilty of the Holocaust and the generations of Germans bearing the guilt. I am always confronted by Michael's guilt as he journeys into the adulthood, bearing the burden of secret. Could I love someone so much, or could I shelve my conscience to the extent of determining the outcome of tragedy of my ex-lover's life? The Reader reads to us a beautiful story of Michael's struggles with secrets, guilt and shame while entangled in the process of growing up, living, loving, losing and releasing.