What would you have done ? She asks

Rating: 9/10 (6 June 2019)

Crime,guilt,punishment and redemption (or lack of it) are weighty subjects. They all came together in Stephen Daldry's adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's book of the same title. It started out aimlessly, looking much like a story about boy coming-of-age with an older woman. By the movie's end it is not about that but how we deal with guilt. Hannah, the older woman, carries a wartime past that explains her hardened exterior and distance. Sensing the boy,Michael, is wanting more out of just sexual relationship, she abruptly moved away. Flash forward to years later Michael, a law student, sees Hannah again, in a courtroom trial where Hannah is on trial along with half dozen other women for being camp guards, aiding and abetting the Holocaust. This is a fresh angle among Holocaust dramas. We are witnessing ordinary people, not to be excused, followed the herd, even it was churning toward evil. To what degree are each one responsible ? It can't be "just following order". Post-war German guilty and retribution is on display. Hannah and her cohorts are charged with not freeing the prisoners while their shelter - a church, was burning. Hannah did not defend her action. Michael struggles with a secret which could have helped Hannah, but he chooses not to go forward. The great Roger Ebert drew this parallel - both Hannah and Michael rejected the chance to do good, and are living with that guilt. It is also important Hannah does not get rehabilitated in the end. Such ending would have pleased the masses but casts nothing about penitence and atonement. Hannah accepts and carries her punishment. Michael carries his guilt differently, in personal relationships and enduring painful history. The book cleverly uses readings of literature as common vehicle linking Michael and Hannah together. "Read to me first, then we make love." says Hannah. Many find the first half of the movie in which there is much puppy love/sex the high point. I can understand that because the latter half strikes a completely somber and serious tone distinctly different than the first part. However it draws for me a more powerful conclusion as we are thrusted into facing the difficult subjects of generational guilt and self-condemnation.