The Reader
The tagline of this movie says “How far would you go to keep a secret?”
Kate Winslet plays Hanna Schmitz, a German woman in her thirties whose teenage lover is unaware of the dark secret in her past. After she vanishes from his life and a few years roll on, he runs into her while attending a Nazi court-trial as a student of law. She is on trial for some atrocities committed at some stage in her time as a warden in a concentration camp during the holocaust. As he realizes that she is in a position to save herself a prison sentence, he is shocked to find that she refuses to defend herself.
What secret does she consider more shameful and hideous than murder?
The movie is based on the best-selling 1995 novel by the same name written by Bernhard Schlink. The scenes involving the love affair between Kate and the teenage boy are done tastefully although a good portion of the film deals with just this. The look and feel of the film reminded me of The Pianist.
The Reader has won several awards at different award ceremonies and also won Kate Winslet an Oscar for best actress in a leading role. What probably made this film a favourite at the film festivals in the fact that it is another film that deals with the sensitive subject of the holocaust, but with a new twist. It urges the viewer to take pity on a death camp guard.
As the NY Times review mentions “…The film is neither about the Holocaust nor about those Germans who grappled with its legacy: it’s about making the audience feel good about a historical catastrophe that grows fainter with each new tasteful interpolation.”
The tagline of this movie says “How far would you go to keep a secret?”
Kate Winslet plays Hanna Schmitz, a German woman in her thirties whose teenage lover is unaware of the dark secret in her past. After she vanishes from his life and a few years roll on, he runs into her while attending a Nazi court-trial as a student of law. She is on trial for some atrocities committed at some stage in her time as a warden in a concentration camp during the holocaust. As he realizes that she is in a position to save herself a prison sentence, he is shocked to find that she refuses to defend herself.
What secret does she consider more shameful and hideous than murder?
The movie is based on the best-selling 1995 novel by the same name written by Bernhard Schlink. The scenes involving the love affair between Kate and the teenage boy are done tastefully although a good portion of the film deals with just this. The look and feel of the film reminded me of The Pianist.
The Reader has won several awards at different award ceremonies and also won Kate Winslet an Oscar for best actress in a leading role. What probably made this film a favourite at the film festivals in the fact that it is another film that deals with the sensitive subject of the holocaust, but with a new twist. It urges the viewer to take pity on a death camp guard.
As the NY Times review mentions “…The film is neither about the Holocaust nor about those Germans who grappled with its legacy: it’s about making the audience feel good about a historical catastrophe that grows fainter with each new tasteful interpolation.”
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