Vielka's Guide to the Movies: The Reader

Like my cousin after "Terminator 2," I left this moving saying this was a damn good movie. After talking to some folks, I have to qualify that. The movie discusses moral dilemmas of all sorts. It begins ten years after Germany surrenders in World War II when a fifteen-year-old, Michael, becomes ill and Hanna, in her mid-30s, helps him out. Months later, he goes to thank her, with his little crush, and they begin to get it on. After a while, they exchange names (what the...) and plans: before they do anything, he has to read to her. The affair goes on for months and one day, Hanna up and leaves. Years later, when Michael is in law school, he sees Hanna again, on trial for war crimes. Hanna was an SS guard at a concentration camp. The other defendants basically put Hanna out to dry, but she could save herself, and Michael could to, but that would mean they both would have to reveal her secret. Neither of them do and Hanna goes to prison for a long, long time.

There are a ton a moral questions, the two most obvious ones being what Hanna does as an SS guard and Michael keeping her secret knowing it would help her out with sentencing if he would just say something. The dilemma in the movie is that you don't want to feel sorry for the Nazi working in the camp. It's like in "Roots" when you get the back story on the slave captors. I don't care if you can't find a job, this shouldn't have been your job. In many ways, it seems like Hanna and Michael feel that way, like she should serve a long sentence, and that's why they keep that secret. The movie-makers don't want you to forget about the victims either. You get a nice tour of a camp at one point. There are two survivors of Hanna's camp, both particularly unforgiving. But I'm not mad at them for that.

I have a distaste for certain movies: white people doing all that they can to end all that they messed up in slavery movies, Civil Rights movies, Africa movies, and white teacher/ folks of color classroom movies...the list is really endless. I am going to put Holocaust movies in that category. Most Jewish Holocaust movies deal with one person saving her/himself, leaving hella people behind or they make a hero out of someone that is mad questionable (Oscar Schindler). Watching those movies, you would really think that like ten people avoided the camps while everyone else was like, which train do I get on? So not true.

In the beginning, I said that I like this movie. I do because I don't think of it as a Holocaust movie. As the audience, we aren't privy to the lives of the Jews and other victims. The movie is about all of us and what we DON'T do, forever watching things happen and not doing anything. We watch Bush 43 do the most insane mess, but we don't impeach him and try him for war crimes. We know about sweatshops, but we keep shopping...and so on. For me, the movie really made me question all the things that we watch happen and try to play innocent bystander, on this whole, this is what I was supposed/ ordered/ made to do. Michael might have been on his keep a secret tip because he got his feelings hurt years back, but he learned to regret that mess. Unfortunately, folks died while everyone was figuring stuff out.

Kate Winslet is awesome and the actor that plays Michael is great too. One more crotch or breast shot would have made this XXX though. By the way, every time I hear about how voluptuous Winslet is and then I see her on the boob tube looking hella thin, so thin you forget she gave birth TWICE, I want to just smack someone.

This is a must-see.