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David Hare’s
The Reader draws its strength from Nazi war crimes, writes Ervell E. Menezes IT looks like Hollywood’s obsession with Nazi war crimes is being revived and finding expression again in films after a long interval. Valkyrie broke the long silence. Now it’s The Reader, the story of a single woman Hanna Schmidts (Kate Winslet), who is on trial for war crimes during those historic gas chambers days.
Based on a novel by Bernhard Schlink, David Hare’s adapted screenplay covers a vast canvas and begins with 15-year-old Michael Berg (David Kross), in the throes of scarlet fever running into tram conductor Hanna, who helps him out. Michael, after he recovers, sets out to meet Hanna and thank her but infatuation leads to sex and a torrid love affair. She’s illiterate and loves being read to and young Michael obliges with passages from The Odyssey, Huckleberry Finn. And The Lady and the Little Dog. Just as one wonders why director Stephen Daldry has chosen such an erotic subject when the liaison ends, Hanna disappears and is off-screen for a while. Eight years later, Michael, a law student, examining a war crime case comes across Hanna’s case and this makes a deep impression on him. Should he give evidence that may exonerate her? Meanwhile, Hanna has gone into her shell and is learning to write and Michael is now played by Ralph Fiennes, may be only to connect with his unforgettable performance in Schindler’s List. It is in this gloom and doom atmosphere that director Daldry finds his true m`E9tier. The court scenes are expectedly grim and all eyes are on Hanna’s crime. Ralph Fiennes has precious little to do but it is David Kross, who throbs with life and sexuality and makes his obsession almost palpable. Kate Winslet is good. Even very good, but most of the latter half she has to do little except look dazed as she gazes into space. She got the Best Actress Oscar for it but her performance in Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road is much better though wasn’t even nominated for it. Bruno Gantz can scarcely be recognised as an ageing law professor. Yet in the 1980s, the vibrant Gantz and expressive Hanna Schygulla were in every third German film as the lead performers. The shift in genres may not be smooth but The Reader draws its strength from Nazi war crimes.
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