I saw The Reader last night. I loved it. No surprise Kate Winslet won Best Actress; she was incredible. Also- the way they aged her throughout the film was very believable, and very impressive.
I want to point out a few of the interesting parts of the movie I liked the most. This might be a little over-analytical but I definitely think it's relevant. Okay, first off, when the concentration camp survivor is talking about the way Hanna Schmitz chose the women she was going to send back, she says that she always chose the ones who were young, and sick, or weak, and she would feed them, or clean them up a little, and then made them read to her. Then she would send them back, essentially, to their deaths. This parallels well with Michael's first few encounters with Hanna. She helps him originally when he (who is much younger than her), on the way home from school, becomes sick. Then, three months later, after recovering from scarlet fever, he sees her again and she asks him if he's always been weak. As the film goes on, before each session of love-making the two embark on, Hanna makes Michael read aloud to her. Just as she made the women read aloud to her before she killed them (albeit, indirectly).
What does this say, then, about the connection between making love to someone and killing them? Winslet's character in the film seems to be as nonchalant about one as she is about the other. She never once apologizes for her actions, either for leaving Michael without warning, or for leaving the screaming women in the burning church to die. She is a wholly self-centered character, however it is impossible for me dislike her. She is passionate, maybe not about people, but certainly about books, literature, and her sense of pride is so strong; she takes the blame for the deaths of over 300 women rather than have the world know she is illiterate. This is no normal woman.
Another point worth noting, something to ponder on further, perhaps, is why Michael seems so detached from all women after Hanna. First there's Sophie, the cute blond with the braids who is obviously attracted to him while they are still in grade school. He pays hardly any attention to her. And his fellow law student. He sleeps with her, but cannot spend the night. As he grows older, his mother mentions that he never comes back to his old town to see her anymore, and even his daughter, Julia, remarks at the beginning of the film that he always seemed isolated from her. He is obviously spending the night with various women, but keeps none of them around long enough to really get to know them. What was it about Hanna that kept him so captivated all those years? Was it the quality of the sex? Surely not. It definitely wasn't her love towards him. Did he lose trust in all women after her? I doubt it. I think it was the idea that he made love to one woman for an entire summer without really knowing her at all. He needed some sort of closure with Hanna to move on with anyone else. I feel that he gained this sort of closure with her eminent release, suicide, and then his trip to New York to visit the same camp survivor that testified against Hanna early on. That closure then enabled him to open up to his daughter about her story.
An interesting quote from the survivor, played by Lena Olin, "If you want catharsis, go to the theatre. You won't get it here." I say interesting because while it might not have been a sort of spiritual purging for her, I feel like it was for Michael, as well as for the audience. At this point, we feel like the guilt of Hanna's actions, her suicide, and Michael's fulfillment of her final will and testament all culminate into a release that allows the audience to sit back, breath a little, and continue watching the film without a sense of desperation that something that needs to happen, won't happen.
Anyways, my mother was right again. As usual. I thought this film was truly worthwhile. Maybe not as relevant in today's world as Slumdog, but certainly a better film overall. I highly recommend it.
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