Monday, November 14, 2011

Film Review and Analysis: The Reader Unearthed Completely


The film inspired from a German novel with the same name essentially deals with the feelings of the German generations after the holocaust. The gap and the misunderstanding between the generations are neatly portrayed in the film. 

What would one think would be the response of every German young child, for what their parent’s generation did? Naturally they would hate their parents and their generation whenever they read a history book or see a documentary. This film is an attempt to bring an understanding between both the post war German Generations which are having difficulties comprehending the holocaust. It explores how the post-war generations should approach the generation that took part in, or witnessed, the atrocities.


Kate Winslet, Hanna Schmitz, in the film seduces 15 year old Michael and has an illicit relationship with him They spend most of the time having sex in Hanna’s apartment. The age difference was stressed for a reason.
The young boy represents the younger generation or indeed all the generations after the holocaust. Hanna represents the generation that took part in, or witnessed the atrocities. The sexual relationship is the affection and the sharing between them. 

'The Reading' assumes great importance in the film and has got many implications.Michael’s generation could not cope with their parent’s generation. They couldn’t understand how their beloved parents, teachers and elders who were so good at thinking and advising could do that sort of thing or for that matter allow that sort of thing to happen. The confused minds couldn’t get an answer. This movie explains it.

Hanna abruptly disappears from Michal’s life after she gets a promotion and appears years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes accused of letting Jewish women die in a burning locked church when she was a guard. Michael is a part of special seminar witnessing the trial of which Hanna is a part. The other female guards claim that Hanna wrote a report on church fire. In reality Hanna is an illiterate and doesn’t read and write. Only Michael knows about it. She would have been punished less if she agrees that she is an illiterate but instead she agrees the authorship and ends up receiving a life sentence for her admitted leadership role in the church deaths while the other defendants are sentenced less.

“Why didn’t she tell that she is an illiterate?” is the question that would come across every mind. That’s the main thing in the story.  There are two things before Hanna now. The first thing is to agree that she in an illiterate and land up in a lesser sentence. On the other hand, she can accept her Nazi past where she was supposed to be responsible for the deaths for many Jews. 

She prefers to accept the Jew murderer role than tell before everyone that she is an illiterate. Michael then realizes that Hanna is keeping a personal secret (her illiteracy) which she believes is worse than her Nazi past a secret which if revealed could help her at the trial. 

Thus it can be concluded that she belongs to a German generation where revealing the atrocities committed against Jews is more comfortable than revealing their illiteracy. They lived in such an atmosphere where the  atrocities against Jews were everyday part of their lives and were pretty well accepted by everyone owing to the conditions created by the Nazis. They had to do all this and accept all this to get the jobs essential for their livelihood. That is essentially the reason why Hanna stammers her hand on the table and asks the judge, “What would you have done if you were in my place?””

In the meanwhile, we come to know that Michael is married and divorced. He doesn’t have a good married life. Thus his life got affected due to his relationship with Hanna. Analogy of the suffering of the younger generation due to the mistake did by the older generation. Michael then remains in touch with Hanna. Hanna later hangs herself to death. She leaves a tea tin with cash in it with a note asking Michael to give the cash to a girl who was the church burn survivor. The girl rejects to take the money and so Michael suggests her to donate it to an organization that combats adult illiteracy, preferably a Jewish one. The analogy that can be inferred with this is probably the novel writer is advising the People (preferably Jewish) to become literate and forgive the later German Generations for what their older generation did in the influence of the Nazis.”

Thus this a movie which is not as straight forward as one would think but has got many wider implications. One can easily visualize the conditions prevailing during the Nazi times after viewing the film. Kate Winslet completely justified her role as Hanna Schmitz and one would definitely be carried away by her acclaimed acting. Please go for it if you haven't seen the film.


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13 comments:

  1. Nice review. I really felt sorry for the roll of hanna. Really difficult to live with secret.

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