The Reader (probably with spoilers)

[brixtonvilla]

I'm going to try to offer my thoughts about this without giving too much away of the plot away. I saw this last night, and really didn't know what to think about it, which is usually a good sign. Kate Winslet is excellent, as are many of the supporting cast, but while I was interested in Hannah, I'm not sure I really cared enough for her or Michael (Ralph Fiennes' character). They both seemed like rather closed, stunted people, and I'm not sure I knew either one of them better by the end of the film than at the start. I'm not sure if that was in the script, or in the way it was played. It was interesting in that it didn't go for easy moralising about Hannah and her actions, but it didn't really explore her actions or beliefs either. In that aspect, it was unsatisfactory - it tried to make someone who had done awful things sympathetic through

Spoiler: major plot twist

the fact that she couldn't read and was ashamed of it

. She didnt quite seem naive enough to make her character and her actions believeable. Your thoughts?

 

[CJohn]

I thought it was a fantastic film. It was a little unclear as to what the message was, which of course isn't a bad thing. But I had been thinking about it since seeing it yesterday. For me:

Spoiler: the reader

I didn't think it was about making her appear sympathetic as such, but more of a device that linked with the themes of the film. As the older Jewish woman said to Michael when he visited her in New York (something to the effect of), "if you want catharsis go to art and literature. Nothing comes out of the camps". Hanna's catharsis was about assuming her position of guilt for her actions, by taking her own life and leaving the proceeds to the Jewish lady. And, crucially, she was only able to do this on learning to read and write. Why is this important? In the sense that she was no longer barred from the realm of language, on entering language she takes on a new subject position. The message being something about the need for us to find symbolic means of working through our sense of guilt for our individual and collective pasts. Rather than repressing a past we sublimate it, through symbolic means in language, that is seeking to help it find expression via art and particularly literature. Rather than trying to tackle it head on which just leads us into a void ("nothing comes out of the camps" i.e. you won't find an answer there). Theres probably a lot more to it than that, but thats what I saw the element re. her illiteracy.

 

[brixtonvilla]

It does make you think, doesn't it?

Spoiler: discussion of ending

Do you really think Hannah's suicide is her taking responsibility? Why only do it on the day before her release? I saw that more as her being unable to face the outside world. I guess her legacy to the daughter is trying to make some kinds of amends, but I don't ever think that I felt she had taken responsibility beyond the "I was following orders" defence.

 

[King Biscuit Time]

Well I thought,

Spoiler: The Reader

I didn't think that Hannah got her catharsis from killing herself, or by leaving money to the Jewish lady. I thought her main source of catharsis was taking a much more severe punishment than she needed to, and could have easily avoided.

Of course, that depends how much of her decision not to admit her own illiteracy in court was out of her shame at being illiterate, and how much was out of her own desire to be punished.

Very good film though.