Torturingly Frustrating but Beautifully Brought to Life

Rating: 9/10 (27 March 2009)

The film works such a contradictory web around the viewer. We are left with a heavy feeling of frustration as Hanna (Kate) condemns herself to a life in prison because she is too proud to admit that she is illiterate. Her performance is excellent, and her character's feelings of embarrassment towards what she considers to be her deepest character flaw are ever-present. Hanna is so perpetually unable to see that her greatest flaw is in fact her pride. Ralph's character, Michael's, greatest flaw is his love for her, he too condemns himself to a life in jail, as he never moves forward, or finds someone else to love, but instead continues to remain in a distorted relationship with her, which is kept alive through the tapes he sends of novels which he reads aloud. He is not in jail, but may as well be as his love for Hanna is the only thing that sustains his tormented life. He himself is torn between loving Hanna, and hating the corrupting effect that she has had on his person. His performance, however, was quite bad. His unhappiness was beautifully portrayed, but his accent shifted back and forth between German and British all too easily. The director did a fantastic job in allowing each scene the time it needed to take an emotional effect on the viewer, we feel as though we are in every room that the characters are in, in terms of space and the time (Post WW2 Germany). The film very subtley comments on the sense of humanity inside each individual, even those who have been put into positions, in which they've had to do terrible things.