The Avenger's Tragedy

Rating: 8/10 (22 January 2009)

Stephen Daldry took an enormous risk in his film adaptation of The Reader, but he did an admirable job given the difficulty of the source material. The film attempts and succeeds in portraying the human side of Nazism which has been lost in modern cinema. Films like Raiders of the Lost Arc are undermined by their implicit demonization of all Nazis, in spite of the historical lunacy of such a position. Sure, it's expected to depict Nazis negatively but not absolutely. The Reader is a response to years of unfair and incomplete characterizations.
It's a tragic, biting romance set in various points of 20th century Germany. The boy is adolescent Michael Berg and the girl (or rather woman) is thirty-something Hanna Schmitz. They've an affair that is as intellectual as it is passionate. Hanna loves listening to Michael read famous pieces of literature to her after they fornicate. He reads many stories to her until she vanishes one day. He doesn't see her again until he attends a trail as a legal student. Hanna left for a new job with the SS. She is charged with authorizing a document which permitted hundreds of Jewish women to die in a fire. Michael remembers her as his first love and never recovers from her sentencing. During her imprisonment, he sends her self-recorded audiobooks which help her to become literate. Hanna kills herself in prison, at the end of her term, like many of Kate Winslet's characters. Michael uses a pittance of her remaining wealth to donate to one of the children whose mother Hanna inactively killed during her time with the SS.
The Reader suffers from an uneven pace. The film begins somberly and becomes uplifting until Michael attends Hanna's trial. Then it regresses to its original tone, but with the added emotional impact of Hanna's condemnation and eventual death. Inconsistency is the result of narrative itself and not lazy direction. I don't think the story would be as effective if one style was preferred over the other. It would inhibit Hanna's depiction as a living yet aloof person. She would have to conform to our expectations or act converse to them. Winslet is talented enough or the book is skillful enough to use Hanna's personality as the only source of continuity throughout the experience. She is a tragic character even when she doesn't have to be. Not in that literature class type of way, but in her relationships with those around her. She ruins Michael's life and many others' but doesn't care. She isn't even aware of her brown thumb. Hanna really "does her job," as she confesses in court and acknowledges her past openly.
What I admire most about the movie is how unsettling it becomes, but the technique is polarizing. When Hanna and Michael are lovers, they are almost always shown nude. The scenes of stimulated sex are so numerous that they become boring. One or two would have been acceptable, but Daldry shows several. They are affectionate in public and purposefully annoy a waitress who thinks Hanna is Michael's mother. Once Hanna is sentenced, Michael doesn't visit his family and divorces his wife. You keep hoping he will find some inner peace but he doesn't. Hanna is inadvertently in control of everything that that happens to him. Her life is unfortunate but his is even more so since he hosts the pain she doesn't express or is incapable of acknowledging.
When I was in high school I was part of the "emo-gang," a group of students known for their bizarre habits and perverse conversations. We discussed several unfathomable topics that I cannot mention in this public review, but they were the only people I knew who shared my desire for legitimate intellectual discourse on any topic. Nothing was sacred or free of commentary. Many things we discussed I have never spoken to anyone else. I have made suitable friends in college, though they've left the emo craze. One of them has a strong interest in military uniforms, including those worn by the SS. I cannot say that she likes military outfits, specifically German ones, without a quizzical look. The Reader reminds me of why I can't. Filmgoers don't want characters to be unique. It's much easier to slap "Nazi" on someone than actually determine if she is evil.
**** out of *****