Mixed Morality

Rating: 6/10 (21 September 2009)

Maybe it's just me, but I'm sort of surprised that the Jewish community hasn't gotten a tad up-in-arms over this film. I mean, it really sets a seriously sympathetic tone for a death-camp guard with unfortunate circumstances. I realize she wasn't well educated and had to make tough decisions in order to survive, but so did many people who came out of the holocaust ...Germans among them. But usually NOT death-camp personnel who were the overseers of those who went into gas chambers.
Still, this film is well-acted thanks to the amazing performance of Kate Winslet (THE HOLIDAY) as Hannah Schmitz, the guard in question. Although I won't take anything away from the other actors in this film, particularly young David Kross as Michael Berg, the boy turning into a man with the help of Hannah's sexual appeal, I will say that, without Winslet, this film likely would've fallen flat, theatrically.
Set across generations of Germans and Germany, the story is loaded with historical interest surrounding the holocaust courts that were set up after WWII. Hannah, not surprisingly, is a keystone for the courts as they uncover what they think is her sole involvement in the ordering of the deaths of Jewish women in one of the camps. Circling back to her time at the camps as a guard, it is quickly surmised (by the movie watcher and Michael, but not the courts) that Hannah has never learned to read, so has those she's about to condemn read to her.
The condemnation is set up in a way that allows Hannah to remember those she's let loose into the gas chambers; a sort of penance for what she is "forced" to do. In a similar manner, she condemns young Michael to a life of lovelessness in that he can never forget her, his first true love. And when Michael goes to school to become a lawyer, he and his classmates are soon brought into the case involving Hannah, but only as spectators. But for Michael, much more is apparent. He has the chance to save Hannah from the courts but is forced into a moral conundrum: Is she worth saving? Is she deserving? The story continues as we watch Hannah's prison years pass by. With her age comes knowledge and words. Michael sends her packages containing books on tape that he recorded for her, emboldening Hannah to learn to read on her own. Which she does. But is it too late for personal forgiveness and redemption? The ending hits pretty hard at these core issues. Personal responsibility. Moral condemnation. Rule of law. Historical atrocity. All of these are intertwined to form a patina of the past that blurs the future.
The film is watchable mainly for the purposes of Kate Winslet. Her performance is absolutely stellar. But the pacing and mixed moral message were tough to swallow for me. I'm not Jewish, but I believe that the holocaust happened. And I believe those associated with it, in any way, do not deserve our sympathies. Even those supposedly "forced" into these kinds of situations. Where's the morality in that?