Based on the 1995 novel by Bernhard Schlink adapted for the screen by David Hare and directed by Stephen Daldry 'The Reader' the film (2008) is not about the Holocaust but about the generation that bore its weight. A 15 year old Michael Berg (David Kross (younger) & Ralph Fiennes (older)) fell in love with an elderly Tram Ticket Collector, Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), who had helped him on the day he fell ill with Scarlet Fever. After a few months of being helped by Anna, when he became well, he returned to Hanna's apartment in the run down old building of the 1950s Berlin he would have never thought it would be the beginning of a love affair that would have life long impact on him. After a beautiful month of summer full of love and its joy Michael's heart was shattered the day he discovered that she had left her apartment and the town without even telling him.
The memory and the experience stayed with him until he found her again after ten years when he was studying law in Berlin and was attending a trial of a group of ex-Nazi guards. Unexpectedly he comes across Hanna Schmidt as one of the defendants. Though she was accused by her fellow guards as the master mind and the one mainly responsible for the death of 300 Jewish prisoners in her care and was given the severest of punishment, 20 years of imprisonment, based on the evidence that the Guards Report of the incident was written by her as an evidence of her decisive role, Hanna kept a vital information secret; that she was illiterate and could not have written that report.
Who would want to pity an ex- SS concentration camp guard or cry for her; such attempts are considered as Holocaust Revisionism.
Chris Menges and Roger Deakins cinematography brings back the Berlin and Germany of 1950s to 1990s giving life to the David Hare's screenplay beautifully. Young Michael Berg's home, Hanna's apartment and the lived intimacies of the summer couple and the emotional old church scenes stays back in the memory. The film did not have any depiction of the holocaust tragedies except for a visit to the camp by the young Michael and this film turned out to be the last film produced by Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack both of whom died before the release of the film in the December of 2008.
Kate Winslet won the Best actress Academy Award for her portrayal of the very rough and emotional life of ex-SS guard giving it a very human face.
