Went to see THE READER, the film based on the book by Bernhard Schlink last night. I haven't read the book but have picked it up occasionally when in the bookshop. If the film is a true reproduction of the central idea of the book, I won't be buying it.
I'm sitting here trying to think why Mr Schlink wrote the book. Was it primarily written as a love story? An erotic tale of a young boy "coming of age"? Or perhaps it was a book that was written to bring the reader and viewer of the film to an understanding of the "other side of the story". Whatever his purpose, the film failed to impress me on a number of points.
I found the central premise of Hanna's "terrible shame" having nothing to do with her being a Nazi prison guard quite unbelievable. This film takes place in the early 1950's by which time Hanna, Germany and the rest of the world would have come to understand clearly what went on in the concentration camps during the war and the extent of the evil, suffering and death.
The scene where Michael (played by Ralph Fiennes) seeks out Ilana Mather (one of Hanna's surviving victims) to give her Hanna's money beggars belief. Even if someone had requested such an action to be carried out after their death, I doubt very much that it would have been. The scene where Ilana keeps the tin in which the money was kept because it reminded her of a tin she once had, seemed to legitimize the appalling payment she was offered.
Ilana says to him "If you are looking for catharsis, go to the theatre or literature. Don't go to the camps." Perhaps this is why Mr Schlink wrote this book about the Holocaust - to show that it is impossible to find catharsis in the camps, theatre or literature.
