Film Critique: The Reader - Research Paper Example

?Film Critique: The Reader Film Critique: The Reader Affiliation Film Critique: The Reader The Reader is widely acclaimed as a must-read novel in literary circles and is as praiseworthy as it is epitomized. Its adaptation as a film is said to have been created to mimic the tone, the milieu and the overall quality of the book - “in every detail… authentic and convincing” (2008) according to David Hare, the film’s screenplay writer. The basic plot of the novel is quite simple. It is a May-December affair between a 15-year old boy and a 36-year old woman which takes place in Germany in 1958. The reader is the boy who reads classic literature to the woman who “loves being read to”. The circumstances which surround this affair are what make the situation more complex. The affair lasts for a while but when things begin to get complicated – like the boy becoming more demanding, and the mutual emotional attachment getting deeper, etc. – the woman decides to end the relationship abruptly, not knowing that this would have a deep impact on the boy’s life later on. The woman disappears from the boy’s life and he feels betrayed, but guilty for driving her away, partly blaming himself for allowing their special relationship to just slip away. The story, simply put, is divided into 3 parts – the lead character’s youth, young adulthood and adulthood. It builds up with flashbacks interspersed in about two-thirds of the film. This is how the viewer is acquainted with the man who is now a lawyer, who was once the boy who figured in the sizzling affair years before. Somehow, at first it is quite confusing to see the lead character, Michael Berg, looking out the window and then staring at a boy riding the tram. The eye-to-eye connection pointed to the linkage between the older man and his past, and how he cherished the memories he had as a young man. The complexity in the relationship comes out several years later, when, as a law student at Harvard, Michael gets to see the older woman he had a short-lived affair with – Hanna Schmitz – among the defendants in a case who was charged with the deaths of 300 prisoner Jews burned to death in a church. As the case unfolds, Michael gets to deduce the reason Hanna had wanted him to read for her during the time they were together – it was because of her illiteracy. Hanna’s companions connived against her and pointed to her as the one in charge when the case took place, and although she was merely one of the guards, they said it was her who made the report about the incident. Hanna vehemently denied this but when asked to create a sample handwriting for her to confirm that she was not the one who made the report, Hanna was placed in a tough spot, thereby prompting her to renege on her previous statement and admitting to making the report just so she would not be put to shame for being illiterate. Michael knew that this would have been a good evidence for Hanna, but he preferred to keep quiet just like Hanna because their affair would have also brought him a lot of embarrassment and shame. As made apparent in the preceding paragraphs, the novel works on a variety of themes like illicit affairs/trysts, shame, young love, guilt, the Holocaust, secret love, generation gap, miscommunication, ignorance and conflict among other things. The relationship which happened between Michael and Hanna is something which if brought out in the open during those times, would have been frowned upon by the majority, especially with the conventional values held during those days. It was obviously physical attraction which drew both of them together initially – for Michael, it was his initiation into sex, his first relationship and he found Hanna a very beautiful woman; for Hanna, it was a way to have sex, younger company and her way of learning through the books that Michael read for her. There was also a short episode for young love, when Michael seemed to feel infatuation for her schoolmate Sophie, but he quickly dismissed this feeling because he gave more weight to his relationship with Hanna. This relationship, however, did not seem to matter much to Hanna – or so, it seemed – as could be seen in the way she merely left Michael without any warning. In actuality, Michael felt a lot of guilt for being difficult to Hanna during their last days of their affair, and this greatly affected how he looked at other women and other relationships later on. In a way, theirs was a physical type of a relationship, and although there were some inclinations on both parties to take the relationship to a deeper level, Hanna knew better to stop these emotions from going further since she knew that it was one of the forbidden kind – bound for naught from the outset. Michael accepted this with a heavy heart, not really knowing that maybe Hanna may have also loved him, but had let him go because their relationship was not meant to be. The setting of the film begins in Neustadt, West Germany, in 1958, at a time when Germany was still trying to get back on its feet after the Holocaust more than a decade ago. In the case in question, Hanna joined the SS (SchutzStaffel) in 1943, and the burning of the church took place in Auschwitz in 1944, where Hanna was one of the prison guards. Perhaps, because of her naivete, Hanna did not think that her co-prison guards would later on concoct a lie to trap her to be their scapegoat, and make her suffer for their sins. It may also be presumed that she accepted the life sentence more willingly than be put on the spot and labeled as an illiterate person because people in the earlier times gave more importance to their name and giving honor to their birthright. Hanna knew that she did not have much to be proud of but her name, and that was what she wanted to retain – a clean name, without any negative label attached to it. She may have been sentenced to a life imprisonment, but at least, she knew that she was only doing her responsibility as a prison guard, and that was what she steadfastly held on to. Interestingly, this is parallel to what Michael did, preferring to keep Hanna’s evidence of illiteracy rather than embarrassing himself for having an illicit affair with an older woman who was not her wife. Coming out in the open about the evidence would have compromised his future as a lawyer, and could have dragged his family’s name with the negative publicity associated with Hanna and her involvement with the SS. It was obvious that Michael had a deep emotional attachment to Hanna as shown by the way he cried when the life sentence was read for his former lover. Riding the train going home, he was still distraught at what took place, and the possibilities which could have happened if he or Hanna could have been more resolute in their decisions, contentions or standpoint. They were nonetheless both fainthearted and powerless, they had their own reasons for doing so, plus their lives had to go on as usual. The story in itself is fresh because it tackles something as controversial as the Holocaust and associates it with love in an atypical context. The scenes are credible and speak tons about the poverty in the locality, just sufficient to connote the way it was affected by what took place only several years before. Another remarkable point of this film is that it is not predictable in the way that the usual film adaptations are presented to the viewer. There are scenes where Michael examines the prison camps just so he would be more enlightened about Hanna’s case and find possible evidence/s, to strengthen her case, just proving further that Michael truly loved Hanna. Both Hanna and Michael felt love within themselves for each other but were both too ashamed to admit it. This is manifested in the facial expressions of Michael. His usual countenance is that of a serious, pensive and quiet person. However, every time he chances upon memories linked to Hanna – like coming across a notebook where he wrote poems for her – his face instantly lights up and love is written all over his face. Likewise, his act of creating tapes of his book readings is, in itself, a gesture of compassion and genuine affection for Hanna, even if he did not make any direct contact – face-to-face or otherwise with the object of his fondness. At one point, he even tried to visit Hanna in prison, but at the last minute, he got cold feet and turned back. From her end, Hanna tried to learn to read and write while in prison, making short notes to Michael every now and then, but it was Michael who now thought that what happened before was now part of the past. His more recent actions were perhaps just his way of making Hanna’s remaining days more special. When Hanna and Michael were finally able to meet in person prior to her release, Hanna brought her hand forward on the table to hold Michael’s, which the latter obliged to for a bit, but immediately retracted. Hanna mistook this as a rejection from Michael. They talked a bit, and when Michael asked the question “You read a lot?” Hanna answered “I prefer being read to.” With a wry smile, Michael looks away. It was Hanna’s turn to ask “That’s over now isn’t it?” and with Michael’s action of trying not to meet Hanna’s gaze, she understood that their relationship was indeed over. At the last part of their conversation, Michael said that he wasn’t sure what she had learned (while in prison), and Hanna answered “Well, I have learned, kid. I’ve learned to read.” Hanna’s curt statement could mean a lot of things especially since the term “read” could imply that she has now become wiser, and she could better understand Michael’s actions. It is obvious in both Hanna and Michael’s faces that they still had a lot of pent up emotions, but it was their choice not to let each other know anymore than what was needed. Committing suicide was Hanna’s way of acknowledging that she knows there is no more future for her when she gets out of prison, or with Michael in the coming days. Michael was the only reason she had for living, and finding out that the only person she wanted to be with has rejected her was unbearable for Hanna, hence her decision to take her own life. The acting in the film is excellent, especially Hanna, the role portrayed by Kate Winslet. Everyone in the motion picture delivered well, even the young Michael Berg gave an outstanding performance, played by newcomer, David Kross. Ralph Fiennes as the older Michael Berg was as impressive as his younger counterpart, although at most times, it was Kate Winslet who stole the limelight with her sensitive rendering of the older woman’s role. The court scenes were very poignant and vivid, again, with the convincing depiction by Kate Winslet whose scenes needed very minimal dialogues to convey what was being said. Winslet gave a truly realistic representation of Hanna as the woman who concealed her illiteracy, and somehow got away with it, except from the eyes of her lover. A wide variety of shots were used to emphasize and de-emphasize specific aspects in the film. Not a lot of extreme wide shots were used, but there were a lot of medium and close-up shots, especially those which involved Michael and Hanna’s affair. The director made ample use of a lot of frontal and rear nudity with regards to the sexual scenes between the lovers, often bordering on the erotic, and the main characters were very relaxed and comfortable in their scenes, making it very realistic and convincingly genuine. Most of the low-key lighting was used – again – during the sensual sequences between Hanna and Michael, although there is a sequence where it was used during the time Michael visited the prison camps. There was an effort to conjure the emotion of gloom and mourning for the souls of those who became victims in the camps where millions died during the war, and also kind of reconciling this with the kind of image being attached to Hanna because she was part of the SS, which is identified with the Nazis. A majority of the camera angles used in this motion picture were of the eye-level angle, although there were also a few attempts at making some oblique angles, and both high and low-level angles. There’s also one bird’s-eye-view angle that is noticeable when Michael made coffee for himself and set it down in front of a laptop on his desk during the first few scenes in the film. Some examples of high-level angle are the one where the camera focuses on Michael’s legs as he rushes up the stairs to meet Hanna in her apartment and the other where the camera is focused on Hanna and Michael in bed while they’re talking before making love. There is also one sequence when the camera pans left as Michael moves on his bicycle and then pans up from the wheel to Hanna’s back when he and Hanna go on a cycling tour. The editing of the film was first-rate, with no loose ends no fancy frills and no unnecessary questions left hanging. There is a smooth flow in the presentation of the story, with satisfactory continuity and skillful cuts implemented. A lot of credit can be given to the director Stephen Daldry and the brilliant screenplay by David Hare in this regard. The sound editing is also agreeable, with a balance of using soft classical music, natural sounds, choir music and other sounds which were not too soft or too loud for the diverse scenes in the film. As a whole, the background sounds served in a functional way to further enhance the other elements of the final production video. The genre of the film’s totality is a drama, but not the heavy kind, and yet the overall impression is one which makes the viewer think and re-think of the plot, mostly wanting to do something more for Hanna and Michael and how their situations could have been better if they only had the courage to meet their situations head on. There is definitely the element of romance and a fairly great deal of steamy bed scenes in this film, but the part of the story which really lingers is the secret love between Hanna and Michael which they chose to dismiss because of shame. Symbolism is used in some portions of this film to augment the direct dialogues and the direct messages being expressed by the scenes. Foremost among these symbols is the generation gap between Hanna and Michael which seems to emulate the parallelism between Germany’s past and present conditions. It is worth pointing out that Hanna’s act of being elusive about her past upon being asked by Michael, can be compared to what Germany went through, which is attributable to having a list of not-so-pleasant memoirs. On the other hand, Michael, who represents the present generation, is eager to reach out and find out more about Hanna and wants to totally embrace her, but she pushes him away. This can be interpreted as the contemporary Germany trying to create a link with her past, but finds out it is a difficult undertaking because of their irreconcilable differences – the horrible conditions Germany was subjected to, and the clean slate that was rolled out after the Holocaust. Another instance of symbolism, which is less complex and more oriented towards the story’s plot alone, is Hanna’s act of giving a bath to Michael just before she disappeared from his life. This somehow reflected the guilt that Hanna carried towards her act of seducing Michael, which she initiated. The act of giving a bath and scrubbing him all over was “cleaning” up whatever dirt she may have soiled Michael’s personality with. Not that it really washed off her culpability for Michael’s awakening. It was just a kind of ritual making the cut/the separation more precise, and also somehow confirming to herself that Michael should be just like a son to her, being less than half her age at that time. And then again, the subject of the film itself, the reader, is a symbol not only of the main characters, Germany and its history or the fictional character of someone who reads, but it also refers to the viewers themselves who can relate to the characters and situations in the film. For one, there is that metaphor of knowing, and yet choosing to remain silent, or choosing not to take action or not doing anything, just as Michael and Hanna had done. As Serena Trowbridge expresses in her review of the book The Reader: “If all it takes for evil to prevail is for the good to remain silent, then how innocent are any of us?”(2004). There are a lot of situations in our everyday lives where we can relate this to, and it’s indeed true that most people would choose to remain in their comfort zone rather than take action in specific circumstances. As a whole, these elements of symbolism not only achieved its goal of contributing to and enhancing the film’s overall theme, but also proves that The Reader is truly a masterpiece which should compel everyone to see the deeper implications it can have on anyone’s life. References Minghella, A. & Pollack, S. (Producer) & Daldry, S. (Director). 2008. The Reader. Germany & Unites States: The Weinstein Company. Hare, D. (2008, 13 Dec) Truth and Reconciliation. Guardian.co.uk. Retrieved from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/dec/13/schlink-winslet-hare-reader Trowbridge, S. (2004, 17 Jan) Reviews: The Reader, Bernard Schlink. Retrieved from: http://trashotron.com/agony/reviews/2004/schlink-the_reader.htm Read More