movie - the reader

[spoiler alert. the plot of this movie will be revealed.]

the reader is a triumph of art in its never ending quest to expose and refine the duality of man. it may be true that only those who possess the most refined sense of empathy will understand the conundrum that is the reader and the richness of the film lay in its ability to explore the gray territory between good and bad or right and wrong. its genius arrives when it forces the viewer to reevaluate the area they have staked out as their own personal moral right.

hanna shmitz, (kate winslet,) is alone in the world and she is illiterate. in the way she carries herself and takes care of herself one can see that she has learned how to get along in the world. she has a set of values she lives by and while she is ashamed of her inability to read, she is careful not to let it be an obstacle to her own ability to pay rent.

at the outset of the film, hanna works on a tram and she is obviously meticulous in everything she does. she meets michael berg, (david kross than ralph fiennes later in life,) when he happens into her doorway one day ill. hanna is duty-oriented. upon seeing michael hunched over on a bench in the entranceway to her apartment, she strides past him with purpose and returns seconds later with a bucket of water to splash the vomit away from the boy's feet.

as it turns out, michael has scarlet fever and ends up bedridden for a few months after which, he comes by to thank hanna, at which point the two embark on an affair. it is michael's first sexual experience and will color his entire life. hanna holds no illusions about the relationship but she treats it respectfully, giving michael what she can in tenderness and experience in return for the satisfaction he gives her. she also has michael read aloud to her regularly as he is something of a star pupil in school and in this way the plot twist that is hanna's illiteracy is revealed.

flash forward 20-plus years to germany's truth and reconciliation trials where hanna is on trial for her role as an ss guard at auschwitz and moreover for her involvement in allowing a church to burn to the ground with 300 prisoners locked inside.

the moral dilemma comes in understanding who hanna really is. she admits to her role at the trial because she sees it as just that; a role. she did not decide anything. she merely accepted a job, which came to her as just reward for her having performed so admirably on the trams. (moving into an office environment was inconceivable for her because of her inability to read so she quits the job rather than admitting to her handicap and finds the ss guard job.) hanna has learned that in this world she must take care of herself which is to say, she must have a job she can perform well enough to keep her paycheck coming in. so monthly when she was told to pick 10 prisoners to come in who she knew were going to the gas chamber, instead of torturing herself over it, she simply picked 10. she saw this as her job. she saw herself as a pawn and she certainly felt powerless to do anything about the larger scale situation.

what is so ghastly about what happened in nazi germany is the simple fact that so many allowed it to happen. one of michael's classmates in law school finds hanna's behavior entirely normal in as much as he proclaims that all germans were complicit in genocide. he explodes in the classroom condemning all of the older generation for doing nothing, a behavior he rightly finds shameful and disgraceful.

americans may find this movie particularly poignant in the wake of the invasion of iraq. somewhere near 50% of us did not support this war but ultimately we were powerless to do anything to stop it from occurring. so instead we went on with our lives. we may have complained but at the same time, we went to work every day. we went to the movies. life went on. hundreds of thousands of iraqis were dying. thousands of our own countrymen were dying or being maimed. some were being tortured or suffering extraordinary rendition.

ultimately you must accept two opposing ideas into your brain when you watch the reader. hanna shmitz' behavior is disgraceful. she should have stopped working that job. she should have died a violent and cruel death rather than continue to do what she did. and, while this would be an appropriate self judgment for her, it is really not for us to judge her. what do we know about what it is like to be alone and illiterate? what do we know about the need to survive and the fear of not being paid regularly? hitler is responsible for the holocaust. hitler and goring and eichmann and the others who made decisions. yes, someone like hanna shmitz would be complicit but given her station in life, only the most angry and abrasive could withold empathy.

so in the end you have to see hanna sympathetically, as someone who accepted the world she lived in on the terms with which it met her daily. her human frailty most poignantly displayed by her inability to read is perhaps the driving force in her life. in her relationship with michael she was both soft and hard but always human, always respectful. at the same time you have to see hanna as despicable. you have to see her that way because it is important for the human race to learn from past mistakes lest we be doomed to repeat them. you absolutely have to keep it your brain even while feeling for hanna that she has made an unspeakable error of judgment, even if on some level she was ill-equipped to do better.

similarly, at the end of this movie you can walk out feeling both wretched for having taken in such a dark and loathsome film, (it is all of that as it will make your gut ache in moments,) and at the same time you can escape this film marvelling at the complexity of life and the wondrous achievements of our highest art form. in two hours the reader will move you in several different directions all the while revealing to your inner self your own world view. like any great art, the idea is movement. the idea is to push at self-imposed boundaries, to spur growth and cause change. in that way, the reader is an extraordinary accomplishment.

movies - revolutionary road

this is for my friends and family. yes, all three of you who read my blog. with less than two weeks until the academy awards, i thought i would write little reviews of some of the major films as i have seen most all of them this year. as these two weeks wind down, i will also write a piece contemplating why steven soderbergh's 'che,' was all but ignored in this country after benicio del toro won the cannes film festival's "best actor," award equivalent.

revolutionary road

couples who impale their dreams on the altar of convention are nothing new. even director sam mendes has tread this subject matter previously in his debut movie american beauty. still, it is a fascinating topic and while revolutionary road is a dialogue driven film, it still commands your full attention from start to finish.

mendes' movie is based on a 1961 novel of the same name by richard yates and it explores themes that should be especially significant and familiar to american audiences. why do americans go into a dull office every day to toil at jobs they find meaningless? why do we seem to care more about appearances than reality? why are we afraid and why don't we recognize fear as the very worst condition to live in? why don't we identify hypocrisy as an outward sign of some other unknown ill? these are the kinds of questions this movie stirs within the viewer and if you like contemplating heavy subjects of this ilk, i guess you will like revolutionary road.

for their parts, leonardo dicaprio and kate winslet give great performances absolutely capturing the essences of their characters, april and frank. they are an american couple with two children who are living the americana, suburban dream of the '50s. frank goes to the office every day but seems to do almost nothing for a business machines company. april teeters on the brink of going stir crazy daily in their seemingly luxurious and charming new home on a hillside in a connecticut suburb.

these two characters are both complex and likeable. frank loves his wife and wants to do the right thing. april loves her children and her husband but like the characters of a kate mansfield or joan didion story, she remains rooted in reality and recognizes her situation as desperate, which if you are honest with yourself in viewing the film, you will too.

on frank's 30th birthday april hatches a plan that involves the family completely uprooting and moving to paris. (yeah, france.) she explains how she can get a job to support the family which will afford frank the opportunity to "find himself." frank warms to the idea and plans follow. however, one day as frank mocks his ridiculous job with some flowery wording about one of their machines, he is approached with an offer for advancement, (in a moment reminiscent of office space.) from this point on frank's weakness seems to take over. his courage falters and eventually he tells april he will not move the family to france, not now anyway.

april reacts with disbelief. she is angry not only at frank for his perceived weakness but also at the society she lives in for her station in it. april decides that she will exercise whatever power she has which is to say, the power over her own body. april's reaction seems on the surface to be a bit dramatic and perhaps crazy but in actuality and in the broader picture, it can be seen as the only sane reaction. april refuses to compromise. she decides that if she and frank cannot take charge of their lives as a couple then she will damned sure take charge of her life as an individual.
the movie employs a mother and son as clever devices to clearly delineate the polar opposite choices frank and april are faced with. kathy bates plays their realtor who sees the world in black and white and lives for appearances. she represents how frank and april's life could be in the future. if they stay put they can become just like her, living in this suburb, knowing everyone's business, constantly making small talk, denying any real self that may exist at the hearts of their beings. or, they can heed the prescient mumblings of bates' son who is just released from a mental institution and who says whatever comes into his mind and thereby exposes the hypocrisy of frank and april's decisions and behaviors.

while it is hardly new territory, the subject matter explored in revolutionary road is fertile ground for the art of our day, movies, to address as a means of moving us and making us think about our own brief lives on this planet. and isn't that what art is all about?