Film Review--The Reader

The Reader
directed by Stephen Daldry
written by David Hare,
based on the novel by Bernhard Schlink
starring Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, David Kross, Vijessna Ferkic, Hannah Herzsprung, Bruno Ganz, Lena Olin, Alexandra Maria Lara,

In this gripping British drama film, based on the German novel by Bernhard Schlink, loyalty and the purity of young lust is examined with clarity and precision.

The film follows the lives of two individuals whose paths meet rather by chance. Michael Berg (Kross) gets off a tram in the pouring rain and vomits in an alleyway. He is attended to by a woman named Hanna Schmitz (Winslet) who cleans him up a bit and walks him partway home. Michael comes down with Scarlet Fever and is bedridden for three months. After recovering he pays a visit to Hanna and the pair quickly become sexually involved.

The film treats the affair rather artfully, with a lot of close ups of quivering flesh, soft lighting and a light, breezy score. One cannot help but retain the knowledge that this is a wholly illicit and in many places illegal coupling. We are supposed to view it as a lovely thing, wholesome, and beautiful for itself. It is untrammeled passion between two people utterly famished for the opportunity.

The relationship is built around both sex and texts. Michael brings books and begins to read them to Hanna. He reads “The Odyssey”, “Hucklelberry Finn”, Sappho, Schiller, and most prominently “The Lady with the Dog” by Chekov. Hanna revels in this experience even managing to cry during a particularly tragic moment. They read, satiate themselves, and read some more. Hanna points out that Michael is an excellent reader, an observation that is important for the rest of the film.

The salient aspect of this relationship is Hanna’s position of power. She controls most everything that occurs from the type of position she wants to employ to when they will be reading to the time they are to meet. She dominates the entire spectrum of behaviors that the couple engage in and Michael has little say about how events are orchestrated. Of course he doesn’t seem to mind considering how he’s dipping his wick every day in a real life grown up woman who is able and willing to fulfil his every desire. She gives him what he confuses for sex and he gives her another trophy on her mantle piece. She claims to love him but only after telling him that he doesn’t matter to her. Regardless, she has commandeered the relationship and is in a position of direct authority.

The film fast forwards six years or so and Michael is in law school under the tutelage of Professor Rohl (Ganz) who takes the small class into the courtroom to observe a trial. Michael is fidgety, looking nervously about until his eyes fix on the defendant. It is Hanna and she is being tried for war crimes. Michael becomes flush and nearly nauseous. Yet he is transfixed by the alleged crimes his former lover committed.

The trial of Hanna Schmitz takes up a considerable portion of the film. She is being charged in relation to a specific event that happened when she was a guard in the S.S. According to the affidavit Hanna and five other guards herded a large group of Jewish women into a church and bolted the doors. In the night a bomb hit the church and set it alight. As the women rushed the door screaming and wailing, none of the guards came to their aid. They let three hundred women die in the fire. When drilled for an explanation Hanna ridiculously states that the prisoners were their responsibility. They couldn’t let them go because the resultant chaos would be impossible to manage.

The film hinges on a special piece of information that Michael has been made privy to regarding Hanna. He says it is something that could change the course of her trial if not exonerate her. The only problem is that Hanna is too embarrassed by the information and would never want it made public. Regardless, it’s a narrative trick that seems designed to portray Hanna in a more forgiving light. It shows her as vulnerable, human.

Hanna is certainly a complex enough woman for several film treatments. When we first meet her she is working as a tram conductor in the late fifties. She is roughly fifteen years beyond the war and has seemed to have put it behind her. Unfortunately a woman named Ilana Mather (Lara) has written a book that features the issue of the church fire. Her mother Rose (Olin) was in the fire and in fact was the only one who escaped. Without the book it is unlikely that Hanna would have ever been tried but once the story made it into print, her fate was effectively sealed. As it is both the author and mother make appearances in the trial and there is much hand ringing. Hanna gives no indication, before her arrest, of looking over her shoulder. She presents herself as an exceedingly officious person with a keen sense of detail and order. Her job position affords her the opportunity to exploit the same tendencies that made her such an effective Nazi guard. Still, one gets the impression that she misses the codified world she inhabited when she was pushing Jewish women about and exhibiting all of the fine characteristics expected from her position. It appears on her face that she knows she is slumming a bit and that certain faculties are not being properly exercised in her present position.

The film makes its case for humanizing Hanna through many close ups that show her in various states of confusion and distress. At least it wants the audience to entertain the option that she is actually a human being who merely acted under orders. It’s an exceedingly complicated thing that cannot be fully actualized. On the one hand we see a woman capable of expressing instances of genuine affection. She laughs, she’s a good lay, etc. In the end she makes one grand gesture that of course makes up for nothing but it at least demonstrates she’s capable of a type of generosity. On the other hand there is the issue of all the Jews she actively allowed to go to their deaths. In most people’s minds, not manipulated by the affects of cinema, the Nazi activity trumps every other kind deed and she is thereby a wholesale monster deserving of whatever fate is meted out to her. I’m not so sure if that’s how we are supposed to feel. Perhaps we’re not supposed to feel any particular way; we’re only to keep a few possible reactions in mind while we pursue our analysis of this film.

We hear quite a bit about the church fire but we do not actually see it. For dramatic purposes I wonder how much harsher the reaction to Hanna would be if we witnessed everything that is alleged to have happened that day. Would it change anything if we saw her and the other guards standing about smoking cigarettes and chatting amongst themselves while the prisoners screamed in terror and the church burned? Or would this disrupt the finely honed balance between sympathy and disgust that the film is so carefully trying to maintain? Would it visually, and therefore too readily, create a portrait of her that can never be redeemed? Speculation, without visual documentation, can be skewed many different ways. But once you see what she has done, your mind is most undoubtedly set. Unless of course you take the position of the guards and sympathize with the job they are forced to do and can understand the difficulties they would face if any of the women managed to escape.

Kate Winslet gives a performance that certainly deserves to be considered one of those most likely to take home an Oscar although I liked her performance in “Revolutionary Road” more. Still, it’s controlled, intelligent, and it’s really near impossible not to sympathize with her on some level. She captures a certain aloofness and her character has a chilliness about her throughout the film that doesn’t ever wash off. Even when Hanna is in the throes of ecstatic release there is a remarkable distance between her and the body she is employing to sate her wanton lusts. Winslet plays Hanna as something of an enigma and it is difficult to ascertain the impetus for her crumbling pronouncements. Ralph Fiennes creates a character who is eternally possessed and haunted by his boyhood sexual experiences with Hanna. There is a sadness about his eyes that is consistent throughout the film. He seems lethargic at times and stuck in place. David Kross brings a youthful enthusiasm into his role as Hanna’s young paramour. Michael demonstrates a deep appreciation for the word and Kross uses this as a guide to maneuver his way throughout the film. Michael is driven, focused unswervingly on the future. Still, he is horrified by what he apprehends when he sees Hanna in the courtroom. Kross captures all of the sickly emotions tied in to such a painful moment.

Overall, this film doesn’t articulate any intended response it designs to elicit out of it’s audience. Hanna is a character who has committed reprehensible actions but who possesses real human traits such as tenderness and warmth. She is a common woman who is thrust into a most uncommon situation and she simply followed orders without question. Of course this is no excuse for letting your humanity slip to the point that you can stand by while three hundred individuals with lives and families are burnt to death. Ultimately, the film unleashes a litany of questions about what makes one a “good” person and how it may change over time. What is “good” about Hanna is battling with all of her atrocious deeds in the eyes of the viewer. Yes, she is responsible for the deaths of many women. But she also sheltered certain prisoners and protected them from the gas chambers. It’s a wholly complicated situation that proves how difficult it is to make a fair assessment about anyone. In this case, Hanna is certainly to be held responsible for any crimes against humanity that can be unilaterally proven against her. She should also not be allowed to go about recruiting young boys to satisfy her sexual needs. But, the question remains. What sort of person is Hanna Schmitz? Can inhuman acts be seen as an anomaly in someone’s character? Should they always define that person or is some sort of rehabilitation possible in the eyes of the civilized world?