I saw The Reader
Saturday, February 28, 2009 at 14:14 I told my friend to have some popcorn and candy before he watched this movie. His response was strange. "I'm part part German, my gentile (or, so I guess I am, anyway) guilt made me anxious and projected an unwarranted cynicism onto your recommendation to eat popcorn and candy at the Nazi movies. Weird, huh? Here you were simply thoughtful about my tummy, and I took it as something else."
Anyway, here is the review:
Kate Winslet really does deserve the accolades.
Her character, Hanna Schmitz said, "It doesn't matter what I think, or what I feel. Those people are dead." That may be the most definite thing one can say about people in history. But the unspeakable horror of inhumanity against humans by humans is something that should always give us pause, to think, and to remember, for the sake of the living. It goes beyond the usual Nazi story to show something inscrutable about (some) pretty average people during that time (and, by extension, the present). Hanna was cold hearted because of her circumstances and culture.
What do you make of the mystery in The Reader? Hanna couldn't have written that report because she was illiterate. So why did she take the rap? Why didn't Michael testify in her favor? Who DID write that report?
She had low self-esteem, and had given up on life even before she met Michael the young boy. Why was she having this relationship with a 15-year old in the first place? I think she considered life, and herself, to be worthless. I come away from the film thinking that this is possibly the biggest reason for the Holocaust; the low-self esteem of the German people at that time. They needed a scapegoat. In a way, I think she represents that society during that time.
Still thinking about Michael. Good point about him running away. Maybe he's the German Conscience--people who knew better, but went along with Hitler's party line. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it takes on that possibility, for me.
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