Incroyable beautiful and sad movie, raising a lot of questions

Rating: 9/10 (24 March 2011)

Incroyable beautiful and sad movie, raising a lot of question about guilt, justice, cowardice and self honesty. As I'd never seen before a movie in which Kate Winslett was acting, I didn't know that she is... absolutely breathtaking ! Fantastic actress, in a part that must not have been easy to play. As true compliments can I write about David Kross, the young lover of Hanna. And Ralph Fiennes, still having a smaller part is not left behind. The whole movie is incredible, and for whom would know me, all the stories about what happened in Germany during last WW2, usually bother me a lot and don't interest me. Of course I don't deny anything of the horrible things, but on my tastes, there are just too many films dealing about the Holocauste... So I'm fed up with them. And as soon as I read a synopsis telling about this topic, I usually just pass straight by. But his one is eventually a superb exception. As I am a "reading lover", the tittle retained my attention, so I came upon to read a little more about the movie. After having seen a trailer, it convinced me to have a deeper look on i, and many comments here on the site gave an indication of how good should be the movie. So my comment is to say : no regret at all ! The movie is so sad, that I'm not sure to see it again, but nevertheless I could strongly recommend it to anyone who likes drama. The atmosphere in so right, no false note. About the story, for sure I just cried as I understood that the male protagonist Young Michael Berg was not going to say what he knew, what would have pleaded for her defense and final sentence. True what did Hanna was out of mind... a shame ! But not to say the truth from former Hanna's lover was almost more horrible, because he did it consciously. I hated him, I mean his cowardice... just let's say the director followed just the most dramatic possible scenario. And yes, for the intensity of the drama, it's the right choice. I really disliked this part, but it is so well filmed and acted, that now I can smile and laugh of it... I'm still in the movie :-)
On my opinion, Hanna was part of this large majority of the German who did unbelievable and insane things, but once they really realized what they did and were part of, were deeply ashame, even though as she said, the were dead forever. That's the only reason why she run away, disappearing unexpectedly. She couldn't stand to love someone, with the deep pain she had inside.
And one of the movie strong point is when a law student youngster raised the question about the fact everyone in Germany knew what happened, and only a few were sentenced to jail. Of course, it is quiet difficult to put, let's say between 60 to 80% of a large country's population...
So this is a sad movie, about a strong topic...
Highly recommended !
*** a film is never really good unless the camera is an eyes in the head of a poet Orson Welles ***