The Reader
Yesterday I went to see The Reader (Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes). I thought it was absolutely amazing, one of the best films I've ever seen.
I thought it started badly - the romance between Michael and Hanna was clunky and difficult - but perhaps the awkwardness of the editing was meant to parallel the awkwardness of their relationship. All that naked flesh as well - it all brought into sharp focus their emotional distance, and Hanna's endless bathing, all that scrubbing (which is a motif repeated in the film) which can be interpreted throughout the film in different ways: in the beginning just another manifestation of her physical (and emotional) control over Michael (she washes him, he stands passively - she first seduces him after insisting that he bathes) and in the prison so many things: another ritual (meaningless, just like her rituals at home or as a concentration camp guard - Hanna is one of those people who can just do, without thinking), cleaning herself of her past, and an echo of those earlier bathing scenes, studiedly unerotic.
But then it surpassed all my expectations. The acting was absolutely superb, and the characters incredibly complex, interesting, and human - Fiennes and Winslet really captured something (and the young actor playing Michael wasn't bad either.) Michael and Hanna are both incredibly flawed. Michael's relationship with Hanna is almost a mother-son one - she is mistaken for his mother in one scene, his own relationship with his mother is distant and becomes icier and icier as time passes and he becomes subsumed by Hanna's personality. Her early influence on him means his future relationships with women all fail. As a result of this, Michael never really emotionally ages: he relies on others for emotional support. Even at the very end, when Hanna dies (and it is implied that, at least partially, it is Michael's inability to provide emotional support that caused her death), he goes to an Auschwitz survivor, who compassionately but astutely asks, 'for what? For comfort?' Michael is totally unable to explain - he lays out his whole life story in front of her, hoping for comfort, or redemption, or an excuse - of his behaviour, or Hanna's, we're not quite sure. It is only through this abortive attempt at gaining forgiveness that Michael finally comes to emotional maturity and addresses his past with Hanna. At this end of the film, he finally explains to his daughter who this Hanna is - acknowleding his own involvement in her life, a small fragment of the war years.
Hanna on the other hand is absolutely marvellous. She is a 'sympathetic' Nazi - but not too sympathetic. She is emotionally abusive towards Michael. She is controlling. She is frightening. She does not have an agenda - she simply *does* - the quality one aims for most in a guard. Someone who will do and not think. Her illiteracy is obviously a symbol as well - she is crippled by it, her inability to read (and thus an inability to understand?) - when she is questioned in court, she is bewildered, and asks often, 'I do not understand what you are asking me.' She fails to grasp the wider implications of her actions. And when she allowed 300 women to die, she does not fully understand this, or at least does not want to think about it: she simply says, 'but we were guards. We could not let them run otu of the building. How could we restore order?' 'So you let them burn to death.' Even her last gesture is hopelessly misguided - she leaves all her money to the Jewish girl who survived that fire in her will. Michael travels to New York to see her and explains about Hanna's illiteracy. The Jewish girl is not impressed: 'why do you tell me this? That she is illiterate? Does her illiteracy excuse her actions? Explain them?' Her illiteracy in no way explains or excuses her actions: it is simply a facet of her that has driven her to be who she is: stubborn, afraid, ignorant - and in that climate, murderous.
I know some people have said that it makes too much light of the Holocaust. I don't think this is true. I think this is not a Holocaust film in many ways - not in the standard way. It is a Holocaust film examining the fallout of teh Holocaust on the survivors - both Jewish (indirectly) and on Germans - especially teh post-war generation. When one of the young lawyers bursts out angrily, 'what should our parents have done? They should have all killed themselves before allowing this to happen!' when Hanna asks the judge, 'what would you have done?', they're not cheap shots. They show the genuine confusion and moral ambivalence after the war. Michael's reaction to Hanna is the same: she was the lover of his childhood, and he is both disgusted by her and yet feels profound pity and sadness for her - and in this is a kind of self pity, a pity for his memories of her and of his childhood. In many ways, Michael symbolises the younger German generation, whose pasts and memories are forever tainted by the war, even if they themselves had no part in it: when Michael weeps as she is condemned, he is weeping for history.
There is so much to it - I haven't even touched on Michael and Hanna's relationship - the inversion of their power (Michael being at first in Hanna's thrall - she calls him 'kid', she is physically stronger and older - and then at least Hanna is in captivity, she writes him childish notes begging him to write to her and still calling him 'kid'; but he is unable to respond) - Michael's inability to help her because he is so repelled by what she has done, yet his selfish need to comfort himself by sending her tapes. He goes to visit her and then changes his mind because he cannot face her: he does not think of Hanna waiting for a visitor, waiting and hoping for someone who doesn't come. He files her letters away neatly and ignores them. In the beginning of the film, Michael accuses Hanna of only giving 'on your own terms. It's always in your own terms. Why don't you ask how I am? How about me?' By the end, it is Michael who is giving only in his own terms. He offers Hanna a place to stay but not with him, he offers her 'rehabilitation programmes' - not time with him. He will give - but only tape-readings, not real communication. Their relationship is forever frozen into time, never equal, never moving.
Anyway, in conclusion - an absolutely stunning film. Now I just have to read the book.
I thought it started badly - the romance between Michael and Hanna was clunky and difficult - but perhaps the awkwardness of the editing was meant to parallel the awkwardness of their relationship. All that naked flesh as well - it all brought into sharp focus their emotional distance, and Hanna's endless bathing, all that scrubbing (which is a motif repeated in the film) which can be interpreted throughout the film in different ways: in the beginning just another manifestation of her physical (and emotional) control over Michael (she washes him, he stands passively - she first seduces him after insisting that he bathes) and in the prison so many things: another ritual (meaningless, just like her rituals at home or as a concentration camp guard - Hanna is one of those people who can just do, without thinking), cleaning herself of her past, and an echo of those earlier bathing scenes, studiedly unerotic.
But then it surpassed all my expectations. The acting was absolutely superb, and the characters incredibly complex, interesting, and human - Fiennes and Winslet really captured something (and the young actor playing Michael wasn't bad either.) Michael and Hanna are both incredibly flawed. Michael's relationship with Hanna is almost a mother-son one - she is mistaken for his mother in one scene, his own relationship with his mother is distant and becomes icier and icier as time passes and he becomes subsumed by Hanna's personality. Her early influence on him means his future relationships with women all fail. As a result of this, Michael never really emotionally ages: he relies on others for emotional support. Even at the very end, when Hanna dies (and it is implied that, at least partially, it is Michael's inability to provide emotional support that caused her death), he goes to an Auschwitz survivor, who compassionately but astutely asks, 'for what? For comfort?' Michael is totally unable to explain - he lays out his whole life story in front of her, hoping for comfort, or redemption, or an excuse - of his behaviour, or Hanna's, we're not quite sure. It is only through this abortive attempt at gaining forgiveness that Michael finally comes to emotional maturity and addresses his past with Hanna. At this end of the film, he finally explains to his daughter who this Hanna is - acknowleding his own involvement in her life, a small fragment of the war years.
Hanna on the other hand is absolutely marvellous. She is a 'sympathetic' Nazi - but not too sympathetic. She is emotionally abusive towards Michael. She is controlling. She is frightening. She does not have an agenda - she simply *does* - the quality one aims for most in a guard. Someone who will do and not think. Her illiteracy is obviously a symbol as well - she is crippled by it, her inability to read (and thus an inability to understand?) - when she is questioned in court, she is bewildered, and asks often, 'I do not understand what you are asking me.' She fails to grasp the wider implications of her actions. And when she allowed 300 women to die, she does not fully understand this, or at least does not want to think about it: she simply says, 'but we were guards. We could not let them run otu of the building. How could we restore order?' 'So you let them burn to death.' Even her last gesture is hopelessly misguided - she leaves all her money to the Jewish girl who survived that fire in her will. Michael travels to New York to see her and explains about Hanna's illiteracy. The Jewish girl is not impressed: 'why do you tell me this? That she is illiterate? Does her illiteracy excuse her actions? Explain them?' Her illiteracy in no way explains or excuses her actions: it is simply a facet of her that has driven her to be who she is: stubborn, afraid, ignorant - and in that climate, murderous.
I know some people have said that it makes too much light of the Holocaust. I don't think this is true. I think this is not a Holocaust film in many ways - not in the standard way. It is a Holocaust film examining the fallout of teh Holocaust on the survivors - both Jewish (indirectly) and on Germans - especially teh post-war generation. When one of the young lawyers bursts out angrily, 'what should our parents have done? They should have all killed themselves before allowing this to happen!' when Hanna asks the judge, 'what would you have done?', they're not cheap shots. They show the genuine confusion and moral ambivalence after the war. Michael's reaction to Hanna is the same: she was the lover of his childhood, and he is both disgusted by her and yet feels profound pity and sadness for her - and in this is a kind of self pity, a pity for his memories of her and of his childhood. In many ways, Michael symbolises the younger German generation, whose pasts and memories are forever tainted by the war, even if they themselves had no part in it: when Michael weeps as she is condemned, he is weeping for history.
There is so much to it - I haven't even touched on Michael and Hanna's relationship - the inversion of their power (Michael being at first in Hanna's thrall - she calls him 'kid', she is physically stronger and older - and then at least Hanna is in captivity, she writes him childish notes begging him to write to her and still calling him 'kid'; but he is unable to respond) - Michael's inability to help her because he is so repelled by what she has done, yet his selfish need to comfort himself by sending her tapes. He goes to visit her and then changes his mind because he cannot face her: he does not think of Hanna waiting for a visitor, waiting and hoping for someone who doesn't come. He files her letters away neatly and ignores them. In the beginning of the film, Michael accuses Hanna of only giving 'on your own terms. It's always in your own terms. Why don't you ask how I am? How about me?' By the end, it is Michael who is giving only in his own terms. He offers Hanna a place to stay but not with him, he offers her 'rehabilitation programmes' - not time with him. He will give - but only tape-readings, not real communication. Their relationship is forever frozen into time, never equal, never moving.
Anyway, in conclusion - an absolutely stunning film. Now I just have to read the book.