The Reader. The first image that comes to my mind is a peaceful, probably old lady who reads books and is nice, certainly nothing war related. But recently I watched a movie called The Reader and to me it came as a shock with mixed emotions - laughter, crying, sometimes wanting to give a piece of advice.
The actors that played the main characters were Kate Winslet as Hannah Schmitz, David Cross as young Michael Berg and Ralph Fiennes as older Michael. Winslet brilliantly portrayed Hannah as an interesting woman - she is illiterate, seems kind but when you find out about her crimes, crimes that I will talk about later, you can’t really look at her the same way... But you still feel pity.
The first half of the movie is centered on a relationship between a 15 year old boy and a twice as old woman. They realize it is wrong and that the boy has an unformed ego, but they continue going on like that for several months. Hannah really likes to be read books to, especially by Michael. One day, Hannah disappeared without any warning. Michael was devastated, he didn’t know what to do about it. Eight years later, he meets her in the courtroom among the convicted Nazis. Turns out, she was a Nazi guard herself. Back in the day, the guards' job was to choose people that were to be sent to Auschwitz, the camps where Jews were gassed to death. I return to the topic of holocaust after reading the Diary of Anne Frank. It is sad to realize that something as hateful and awful as holocaust happened less than a century ago. I hope it never repeats again. But the movie is not completely about that. In my opinion it makes us look at the guards as humans, not as heartless animals. For example, Hannah Schmitz for her whole life only knew that she has to do as she is told by important people. She was given a life sentence. Why? For what happened over time and for what happened during the accident in the church where 300 Jews died. They say Hannah was in charge, but here Michael finds huge mistake - it could not be Hannah because she is illiterate and she was supposed to write the report. In my opinion, her illiteracy was the reason her life was ruined. First of all, she would never even consider applying to a job with Nazis. Second of all, if she weren't so ashamed of her illiteracy, she would have told the judge about this major inconvenience to avoid being imprisoned for someone else's deed. In my opinion, the court is not the place to be ashamed of this. But some people may disagree.
Michael also could have told the judge that Hannah is illiterate, but he did not do so. He failed Hannah twice, but that was enough to ruin her life and his own life.
Both Hannah and Michael are guilty in their relationship - she should never been in a relationship with him. Michael shouldn't have ruined her life like that when he could help her. I cannot judge anyone - if my family had holocaust victims and we found the guards, any guards, we would want justice. But if I were also Michael, I would want to save Hannah. It is difficult to judge anyone. It says in the Bible: Judge not, lest ye be judged.
I will read the book because it is still a little unclear - the events in the church, the psychology behind all this. I will probably make a review on that too.