"It isn't how you get there, it's what you do along the way that counts."
"It isn't how you get there, it's what you do along the way that counts."
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Director: Stephen Daldry Screenplay: David Hare Novel: Bernhard Schlink Genre: Drama - Romance Country: USA/Germany Certification: 15+ Language: English DVD Release: 25th May, 2009 (UK)
MAIN CAST:
Kate Winslet (Hanna Schmitz) David Kross (Young Michael Berg) Ralph Fiennes (Old Michael Berg)
Michael Berg, a middle-aged barrister tormented by his past, recalls his relationship with Hanna Schmitz.
1958 - Michael, who is only fifteen, is on his way home from school when he becomes violently ill. Taking refuge from the rain inside a block of flats, he sits down on a bench... and along comes 36-year-old Hannah who kindly helps him back home.
Months later, having recovered from his bout with scarlet fever, Michael purchases a bouquet of flowers and returns to the building where he met Hannah. Finding her flat, he gives her the flowers and thanks her... and with that first offering romance blooms, burgeons, and over the course of a steamy summer, Michael's life will be filled with reading sessions and wild, passionate lovemaking--until he turns sixteen--at which time he will visit Hannah's flat only to discover that she has gone.
1966 - Never having fully gotten over her, Michael, who is now a law student, attends a Nazi war crimes trial and sees Hannah--a former S.S. concentration guard who is on trial, along with four other women, for mass murder.
During the course of the trial, Michael, who is torn between his feelings for Hannah and his strong sense of justice, realises that he possesses information that could save Hannah from receiving a life sentence, information that Hannah herself has held back because of a misplaced sense of pride. Battling his feelings, Michael must decide whether or not he will help her...
'The Reader' is, without a doubt, one of
the most thought-provoking and disturbing movies I have seen since 'Atonement'. If I bring up 'Atonement', it is simply because the two movies have much in common--summer love, innocence, passion, and deceit.
I can now fully understand why Kate Winslet won an Oscar for her performance in this movie... she was absolutely brilliant.
Hannah Schmitz is a complex character, one that even now I am uncertain I fully understand. There is something missing in Hannah, something that was broken early on in her life and never fixed--something that is hard to define, a piece of her soul perhaps, an emotion, the inability to recognise right from wrong, or to even understand the differences between the two. In others this lack might create something monstrous, but not in Hannah... there is an innocence to her that is extremely disturbing, a sweetness that isn't sweet at all. She is dominatrix, seductress and nurturing carer all in one. Some might be forgiven for thinking she is unhinged; at times we can even glimpse the madness just beneath the surface, but don't be deceived into thinking that she doesn't know exactly what she's doing. Hannah's sense of right and wrong is non-conformist, it follows no strict guidelines, and therefore she doesn't suffer from a guilty conscience... at least not in its truest form.
There is just so much depth to Hannah that the moment you think you've sussed her out, you realise you've done no such thing. Hannah, the carer, treats Michael like a child--she prepares baths for him, washes him, tells him how clever he is. Hannah, the dominatrix, never cracks a smile, she has temper tantrums, she makes Michael feel insecure and traps him deeper in her web of deceit. Hannah, the seductress, is sweet and innocent, her wide-eyed approach to new experiences enthrals Michael, her ability to switch from naïve companion to passionate and uninhibited lover fascinates him--it gives him the false impression that he is in control, that he is the mature one, but it's all an illusion.
It is just so easy to compare Hannah to the S.S. concentration guard she once was, a role she continued to live long after the war. Michael, much like the Jewish prisoners she guarded, has been manipulated into giving her what she wants, and in exchange, she has given him what he wants. In the concentration camp it was bits of food, her protection, even a bit of kindness, with Michael the price is her body... all she really wants is to be read to. Hannah doesn't care about anything else. When Michael asks her if she loves him she'll nod her head, but chances are she has no idea what love is--she's never felt it. She doesn't actually care for Michael at all, the proof is that she never even calls him by his name... she calls him 'kid'... this is perhaps her way of remaining emotionally detached.
Enough about Hannah, I could probably write a book about her character, but that doesn't mean I actually understand her. She will always remain an enigma, a shallow woman who is more child than woman, one who is flagrantly lacking in self-esteem, who has probably been abused at a young age and whose only shame has nothing at all to do with the lives she has destroyed.
Young Michael, played by David Kross, is such a sweet character, so charmingly naïve and trusting. He is, in truth, the perfect victim. Michael comes from a middleclass German family, the middle son who is coddled by a far-too-attentive mother, envied by his brothers and sisters, and almost totally ignored by a strict father who would rather read the newspaper during supper than have to speak to his wife and children. Michael, only fifteen, is a sensitive lad, kind and compassionate, and his attraction to Hannah, at first, is not entirely on a physical level, however, when he spies her dressing, he experiences desire--probably for the first time. Although he runs away in shame, embarrassed that Hannah has caught him ogling her, he returns, incapable of staying away... an innocent, he is seduced, and much like a starving child, he'll do whatever she asks in exchange for sustenance. What Hannah asks him to do is simple and innocent enough... read to her. In exchange, she'll give Michael her body, but not her heart--although she'll make him believe that she loves him. In order to keep him coming back, she'll fill him with uncertainty, make him feel insecure, she'll even be cruel at times, but this all serves to tie him to her. What Michael won't realise until much later in his life is that Hannah has not only stolen his heart, she has stolen his youth and turned him into a man who is doomed to go from one failed relationship to another... because he will have lost his ability to open up to people.
Ralph Fiennes, who plays Michael Berg, is such a brilliant actor--although he does not actually hold the major role as the older Michael, he is the perfect culmination to young Michael's life, he is exactly the type of man you would expect him to have become. Older Michael still possesses that incredible boyish charm, the sweetness and kindness that were his trademark as a youth, and that heart-warming timidity, however, his openness has disappeared; he has become something of an introvert. This older version of Michael is tormented by his memories because he has come to the realisation that Hannah used him, and although he can sympathise on a certain level with her, he knows, as an adult with a strong sense of right and wrong, that what she did to him was wrong... yet he loved her... perhaps he still does.
There is no action in this film, no great adventures, nothing even mildly exciting... this is a slow movie, one that gently unfolds over a period of 124 minutes that are, truth be told, sometimes noticed. 'The Reader' is long, but it is also filled with scenes that are more like images, snapshots that could be contained within a photo album - scenes that are not really scenes, they're memories, and there is just so much emotional baggage being created that you can feel the weight increasing with each new scene, each new snapshot, each new memory.
'The Reader' is disturbing on so many levels - the adult/child relationship feels so incredibly wrong, yet Hannah's naiveté coupled with Michael's innocence doesn't feel wrong at all - Hannah's morbid past, her ability to manipulate, her unconscionable actions. There is just so much to see, to feel, to understand... so much to think about.
For those who don't care for movies along the lines of 'Schindler's List' or 'Atonement'... steer clear.
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Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
The Reader begins in Germany shortly after the end of WW2 when teenager Michael Berg ... more
becomes ill and is helped home by Hanna a stranger twice his age. Michael recovers from scarlet fever and seeks out Hanna to thank her. The two are quickly drawn into...
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Mar 10th, 2009
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