The Reader

plz add Hindi dubbed

just want to give it a trial

awosum

This is a very strange movie in that there are MANY moral dilemmas and situations that clearly are unsavory--yet the film takes a completely neutral stance in presenting the plot. I am sure this offended some but it did make for a very memorable film. As for me, I am still not sure what I think about this strange style of film making. The movie begins with a 16 year-old boy being seduced by a much older woman. The morality of this and their subsequent affair never seems to matter---it just is. During this time, the older woman (Kate Winslet) was often quite moody and the boy's welfare really didn't seem that important. Also, she would force him to read to him before they had sex. Why is an important part of the film--and frankly, though it was apparently supposed to be a twist, I figure this out immediately. However, this didn't spoil the film. One day, Winslet disappears. Exactly why you really don't know. The boy grows and is now in law school. As part of one of his seminar classes, he and the class go to court to observe. The case involves some Nazi war criminals--and it turns out Winslet is among the defendants. And, the fact that she had other 'readers' finally makes the young man realize why. Winslet (this is NOT much of a spoiler) is illiterate. Yet, she is so ashamed of this, she is willing to accept a much longer sentence to hide her illiteracy. And, during her long incarceration, the ex-lover (now played by Ralph Fiennes) makes it his life duty to record book after book for her to enjoy while incarcerated. There's a bit more to the film than this, but I'll leave it up to you to see for yourself. The movie has some excellent acting, though I did wonder why the leads were played by non-Germans--while some other major characters were German-speaking actors (like the Swiss-born Bruno Ganz). I wonder why they didn't just have Germans in all the roles. Perhaps they thought it was more bankable with Fiennes and Winslet. The moody music and direction were perhaps the best part of the film, however---very evocative and well done. As for the plot, I cannot completely reconcile myself with the fact that the film appeared to possibly condone or was indifferent to evil. Sexual exploitation of a teen and the holocaust are BAD....REEEEAAAL bad! And that made me a bit uneasy, as I enjoyed the film and the odd plot. Also, I felt that it was a shame there was so much nudity, as I would love for teens to see the film--it would be great to show them to instigate discussions and provoke exploration. A weird and unique film. Hard to really describe and one you may enjoy but also one that may prove too challenging--as I could really see this causing some viewers to become angry, depressed or too emotionally taxing. By the way, was it just me or am I right that it seems that Fiennes' character wasted his life? And, interestingly, Fiennes also starred in the excruciatingly dull "The English Patient"--another VERY morally ambiguous film about the Nazis and moral choices.

The first half of this movie, which focuses on the relationship between a young man (16 or so) and a middle-aged woman, is beautifully shot but pretty empty. It is as if the talent behind something like a Merchant-Ivory film (minus the script writer) had grabbed the first story that came to hand and filmed it just to keep busy. It's beautifully done, but apparently pointless. Then, once the trial starts, the movie gets MUCH more interesting. Kate Winslet gives a truly first-rate performance as a very difficult character whom we only come to understand over time. This second half held me. Yet, after it was over and I discussed it with the person with whom I had seen it, I found weaknesses as well as strengths. Michael, the young man who has an affair with Hanna, is studying law and guilt, but he really never has interesting things to say on Hanna's involvement. His conversations with his professor could have been much more interesting and better written. In the same sense, Hanna's preoccupation with order and fear of chaos, which play so important a role in the second half of the film, could have been developed in the first half. As could have been her shame over her "deficiency." Not the great movie some critics seem to be hailing it as, therefore, but still worth a viewing, especially for Winslet's truly impressive performance.

Former Nazi SS officer learns that reading is fundamental. That should be the tag line for The Weinstein Brothers Oscar nominated film: The Reader, featuring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. It is the story of an emotionally constipated man, Michael Berg (Fiennes), who cannot open up to anyone and it is all because of an affair he had with an older woman, Hannah Schmitz (Winslet) when he was 15 and she broke his heart. The affair was torrid and in between sex romps, the boy would read to the woman and it acted as a kind of aphrodisiac for her. The affair lasted one summer in the late 1950's in W. Germany. The film than moves on to the meat of the story, when several years later, the young man goes to law school and he is taken on a field trip to see a trial of former SS guards from Auschwitz who are on trial and it turns out Hannah is one of the guards on trial and he is shocked. With Hannah's fate in the balance, will she make a decision to protect her pride rather than her life. Michael has information that could affect the outcome of the trial and will he use it to protect his long lost love. These are the supposed harrowing questions that we should be made to care about. But I for one did not. I was bored watching this film. There's no guts to it. The courtroom scenes were slow and contrived. Too much talking. I can only say Director Stephen Daldrey is to blame. Film is a visual medium afterall. I can go on but I'll just finish the review discussing the acting. I was uninspired by Kate Winslet (who is a very good actress) and after all the Oscar talk about her being a shoe-in to receive the Oscar for Best Actress for this performance, I couldn't wait to see ho much better it had to be than Revolutionary Road, which I believe she should've been nominated for instead (also a boring film by the way). I felt she didn't really believe in her character. Her accent was uninspired and at times she would give a glimpse of emotion but it was fleeting, particularly one scene in the courtroom. Granted this is a provocative role, especially with the sex scenes with the young Michael but her character, like Michael is stunted emotionally. I didn't feel she had much going on underneath to make her stoicism palatable. Neither did I find Ralph Fiennes (another excellent actor) performance all that good either. Actually, the only actor I enjoyed watching was Lena Olin who plays a Holocaust survivor. Bruno Ganz who plays Michael's law professor was equally disappointing. I usually like Bruno's work, but I felt like he was indicating and forcing his lines. So, we have a pretty sound cast, in a wasted effort. The whole film feels contrived and emotionally manipulating due to its subject matter. Once again, we have a film that forces German guilt on to us. I have a strong feeling about this, after vacationing in Berlin last spring and seeing how much the Germans still berate themselves for the war. The nation should be prescribed Prozac in my opinion. The Holocaust was a tragic, horrible and an unthinkable blight on humanity , but the fact that substandard films about this subject continue to be revered by the Academy virtually every year grows tiresome to me. The fact that The Dark Knight or even The Wrestler was passed over for The Reader is ridiculous. I am hoping Meryl Streep or Angelina Jolie gets Best Actress next week.

After having seen The Reader, I found myself in a state of shock, amazement, and disbelief that the same film I had just wasted 2 hours of my life on had been recipient of so many awards, as well as having the seemingly unanimous admiration of film critics lavished upon it. The lovely and talented Kate Winslet stars as a secretary for a high-ranking Nazi Officer who years later will end up on trial for her role as an accomplice for many of the heinous crimes committed by her despicable low-life employer. What ensues is an odd mix to be sure: a statement on Pro-literacy, an art house period piece, soft-core titillation, and a Holocaust/WW II epic. It unfortunately fails with all four. In the film, Winslet's character carries on a torrid affair with a young man. Capitalizing on the well-known fact that Winslet is not shy in front of the camera, there are several explicit sex scenes featuring a fully * Winslet - as is the case with countless previously released films in which she stars. I am no prude, but Winslet appears to be long past the point of being typecast in this type of role. Nothing wrong with that, but it has now reached a point where if she appears in a film in which her breasts are not bared, people in the audience may be asking for their money back. Winslet is most certainly a fine actress, but the abundance of praise she has received for her turn in "The Reader" is mind-boggling to say the least. She has given far better performances in just about everything else I've seen her in. Without question the sole motivation for any studio greenlighting material such as this are for Oscars. As a film fan and Oscar telecast viewer, it is rather disappointing to see the clout of Big Hollywood producers strong-arming the Academy year after year so exercises in mediocrity like "The Reader" monopolize the nominations in big categories. To see superior films such as "The Wrestler" and "Gran Torino" get snubbed in the top category is a real shame for movie fans. Time would be much better spent reading a book for 2 hours than seeing this garbage. Three stars for Kate, one star for Ralph Finnes portraying the boy as an adult, ZERO for the film.

We don't know. We think we do but we don't. We make decisions or sometimes decisions are made for us but we think we've made them. Then suddenly, there we are. We can't be certain how we got there or where we will be when everything settles but we do know that we are alive. Some experiences are life altering and we can run from them or embrace them. Staying to see them through though can bring incredible bliss but also tormented turmoil. We just never know. One such experience was had by a young Michael Berg (David Kross) and is chronicled in Stephen Daldry's THE READER. How could he know that when he pulled into an alley to be sick that he would meet the woman who would shape his entire life? How could he know that getting close to her would pull him the furthest he's ever been from himself? Of course, when you're a sixteen-year-old boy and a woman who looks like Kate Winslet disrobes in front of you in the privacy of her bathroom, how much thought really goes into the decision that has presented itself? However little it is, it is certainly less than is warranted. This is especially true in West Germany of 1958. This is a Germany that is uncertain how to proceed, how to be its new self in the eyes of the world and the eyes of its very own future generations. Winslet plays Hanna Schmitz, a compassionate woman but also abrasive and stern. Winslet strikes the perfect balance between directness and desire in Schmitz, making her complexities part of her appeal. She is a good fifteen years older than the young Berg and she knows much better than he of her country's history. What he knows, he has read in books, been taught in school. What she knows, she lived first hand. So when the two come together, naked in each other's arms, the meeting is as redemptive as it is passionate. Berg is just happy to be in love and having sex but Schmitz is washing herself clean with the youthful vigor of Germany's tomorrow. The summer ends and so does the affair, as one would expect. Just when it would seem that the two would never meet again, life steps in to ensure that past decisions, perhaps made in haste, can come to see their consequences. Berg has grown some and is a college man, studying to be a lawyer, when he catches sight of Hanna Schmitz again. Their latest chance encounter is far less exciting though as he sees her on a class outing to a courthouse. Schmitz is on trial for crimes against humanity for her time as an officer in the Nazi party during the Second World War. Berg's memory of his first love would now become a question of his own morality. How could he love someone who was now accused of such atrocities? How could he be so intimate with someone he apparently never truly knew? And yet, now that he knows her past, does he really know how her past came to be? After all, what is the face of evil? Is it Hanna Schmitz or is it something incredibly bigger than her? Ralph Fiennes is the future of Germany. He plays Berg as an adult. His life is orderly, very clean, crisp and cold. He made decisions that made him the man he is and he can never say whether they were the right ones or not. What he can see is that we all make decisions that either hurt or harm other people and that the atrocities committed by his past generations are not as far outside the realm of understanding as he might have originally thought. More importantly, redemption is not that far either.

Post-WWII Germany: Nearly a decade after his affair with an older woman came to a mysterious end, law student Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) re-encounters his former lover (Kate Winslet) as she defends herself in a war-crime trial. The film raises the question of whether we should judge someone by the law or rather "the laws of the time". And there is a big difference. Of course we know that killing is morally wrong, and those who sent people to death in World War II were morally in the wrong, even if they were only following orders. But were they legally wrong? One could argue not. That is a difficult topic. Like the women of this film, those at the Nuremberg Trial were tried and convicted under laws invented after the war. Laws written by the winners. This makes one wonder: is it right to put someone on trial for something morally wrong, even if it was not legally wrong? And who should decide the laws? Had the Axis won, they could have just as easily declared it illegal to drop atomic bombs on innocent villages and then try, convict and execute Harry Truman. Right and wrong is no easy topic.