Der Vorleser

I always watch this movie with my friends from abroad. History well explained and outstanding performance of Kate Winslet.from Wikipedia quote: 'To educate herself on the stigma of illiteracy, she spent time with students at the Literacy Partners, an organization that teaches adults to read and write.'We love you KATE, you are an awesome actress. the krauts from LONDON xoxo

A film which leaves a very deep impression and one well worth seeing if only for the brilliance of Kate Winslet as the nervy, somewhat robotic character and her involvement with a 15-year old boy who is affected for the rest of his life because of that brief period in his life. Some aspects are quite disturbing in that you have to question how you would deal with the situation she was involved in during the time of the Nazi atrocities. Later, you might be putting yourself in his shoes and questioning his decision and how you would react in the same circumstances and with the same situation confronting you. A challenging film for reasons you will only understand when you see it.

I saw this when it came out and also read Frederic Raphael’s scorching critique of it. It is flawed and dishonest but compelling. The reader in question is a teenage Berlin boy who in 1959 is seduced by an older woman who likes him to read to her. He becomes a lawyer and through his studies discovers that his first love was a guard in the SS and is on trial for war crimes. It turns out she is illiterate, and could boost her defence by admitting this, but prefers a huge jail sentence to the shame of such an admission. The dishonesty lies in the fact that no one illiterate could have been in the SS, and in the creepy way that her illiteracy and attendant shame are almost offered as an equivalent to the sufferings she caused. The acting is excellent (Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes) and the period recreation admirable.

The performance by all actors is superb. Bruno Ganz( The law professor) is outstanding and Kate Winslett gives the performance of her life whilst Ralph Fiennes/David Cross interpret the dilemmas of Michael Berg ( the young lover who becomes a lawyer) in acrediblw way. There are many facets to this movie: coming of age, love between people of different age, the holocaust, the reason why people did what they did, the power of education, human relations, guilt, injustice, post war Germany, and so on. It makes you reflect in general about human behaviour and how we all react to different circumstances in different ways. The question that Hanna, the defendant, asks the judge is " what would you have done in similar circumstances?" . it is too easy to answer : "I would have behaved differently". The visual descriptions of towns and apartments in post war towns is extremely interesting. Some viewers may consider the story of a justification of the Nazi atrocities, creating sympathy for Hanna, a Kapo in a concentration camp . In my opinion, it is not a justification, but rather a view of one of the many reasons why people did what they did, following the rules It made me think and it raises the question about whether the Germans did deal with their Nazi pat in the right way. The best film I have seen for a very long time.

Most things have been said by former reviewers. This excellent movie is not only thought-provoking, it is tender and raw at the same time. Her loneliness and shame, her guilt and innocence are all intertwined.What I found most satisfying were the extra's on the blu ray disk. Here we have the deleted and extended takes of many scenes, that speak for themselves. If they had been included, many riddles and confusions would have been better understood. Maybe it would have been a good idea to have made a director's cut with the now lacking scenes. The movie then would be over two hours, but who cares?

This is a review of the two-disc edition. It does not include any plot spoilers.I work as an usher at the local arts centre cinema. `The Reader' was my film of the year for 2009. I was moved by its portrayals, by the story. It is also a brave film and many critics misunderstood its message. It is a film in three acts, all set in Germany and all featuring the relationship between Hanna and Michael: Neustadt in 1959, Heidelberg in 1966, and Berlin in 1995. But the story itself is played out over all five decades.The first act is a touching love story: Michael tells us, "I was fifteen. I was coming home from school. I was feeling ill and a woman helped me." There is then a sudden turn into the second, where we enter a court room and come face-to-face with what Hannah Arendt famously described as `the banality of evil', the warped logic of mass murder. What is so moving is the act of pride to hide shame, but it is shame for the wrong reason. (In a sense the shame would still be there whatever crime had been committed, but what blurs the principle in this case is that the crime is heinous.) The third act attempts to be redemptive in all sorts of ways and all sorts of levels.This is a film full of questions, replete with points for discussion. I cannot remember a film that is so questioning of the relationship between principles and their application in law and in morality. It is a gift to teachers and students of philosophy, history, or jurisprudence as there is plenty here for discussion in the classroom and in the pub. For example, after watching this film, do you feel sympathy for Hanna? And, if so, does that make you uncomfortable?What of the extras on disc two? There are, firstly, twelve deleted or extended scenes, taking up almost an hour in length. There are short pieces with composer Nico Muhly, production designer Brigitte Broch, and with Kate Winslet herself in make-up. There is a ten-minute conversation between director Stephen Daldry and new-star-on-the-block David Kross. But the longest extra is the twenty-three minute `making of', which features Daldry, screenwriter David Hare, original author Bernhard Schlink, and various contributions from the principal actors.