Hanna commits heinous acts upon those in her care...
I just saw The Reader (Kate Winslet, great great great movie) and someone wrote a fantastic review on imdb and i wanted to post it here because it is incredible and put into words everything i had been thinking.
Right? [One interpretation] Maybe. Michael is unwell when they meet; she uses her strengths [quick reactions, orderly, decisive] to alleviate his distress thereby inspiring an unintentional but needed connection. Hanna is a lonely character or at least a solitary character; she does not appear to be capable of forethought or malicious intent. She is task focused, hard working, clean and orderly. She does not appear to have a complex interiority. Later on we see these situational characteristics repeated when she recounts the fire incident at the holocaust camp. She says she could not let the people out of the burning barn because there would have been disorder, she was commanded to keep them locked up. She asks the judge what he would have done, although this is a dramatic point that seems to speak to her indomitable and domineering nature, in part she seems to be asking because she still does not know what else she could have done. She cannot divert from the rules, or the rules as she sees them, from the object of her employment even when people’s lives are at stake. Michael’s law professor reminds him that the verdict of murder requires intent to be proven. Did she intend to kill those in the burning barn through action or omission? Did Hanna intend to abuse Michael? Did she intend to impact his life to the extent that she did? How to discern intent and the impact intent has on judgement of behaviours seems to be a recurring issue. Hanna diverts from societies rules when she takes up with a 15 year old boy, yet she would not divert from her commands to save lives. It is almost as though she cannot see the connection, or there is no stability or continuity to her moral code. She cannot see the grand scheme of morality as it applies to her life. We are reminded of this when sat in a bath tub; they are both naked and Michael is reading lady Chatterley’s lover, she exclaims with a straight face and an adamant expression that this book is filthy. We return to the issue of cleanliness. Was Hanna religious? Sat in the court house during Hanna’s trial Michael is visibly shocked by the revelation that Hanna made the young girls in the camp read to her because the details reveal the parallels with his own situation. Are we to assume that education allows us to do this? That education enables us to reflect on our own world with the tools of literary fiction, philosophy, history. What does it mean to be educated? What does it give you? How does it affect your internal world, the way you function in the external world? It seems as though the ability to read represents education, knowledge, knowledge as power.
This film highlights the ambiguity of roles. The roles we give each other, and the roles we take for ourselves. Michael and Hanna at points are reduced to their roles, their functions. He is reduced to his functions, he is a reader, and he is a lover, he is a "kid", a son, just as Hanna is a bus conductor, or Hanna is a camp guard. We see how these roles guide and restrict, how to an extent we live out our given and chosen roles as we imagine we should. It also rather cleverly explores the ambiguity of the perpetrator and victim roles. At points they seem interchangeable or at the least confused. It shows us how perpetrators benefit from their victims; Hanna benefits from Michael and the young girls in the camp who read to her - she is entertained, comforted, engaged, educated and eventually the tapes she receives from Michael while she is in prison help her learn to read, she is given something she desperately needs, something valuable. Learning to read marks a change in status, a change in understanding; it allows her to think, to reflect. We also see how perpetrators become needed by the victim; in this case a physical enmeshing occurs. She washes, nurtures, and to an extent orders his life - impacting his internal world, he must leave at a certain time each day to be with her, to read to her. She is in charge, responsible, capable, comforting, and satisfying.
If we are in any doubt about the nature of Hanna and Michael’s relationship the court scenes provide the viewer with an external social judgement through which to view Hanna. They find her guilty of murdering 300 people and send her to prison for life. She is deemed to have been unfit for purpose retrospectively and unfit for any future purpose in society. This decision seems to arise because she is not able to make the minute moral decisions that protect her and those around her from harm. We are left to ponder why she is unable, is she mentally or morally deficient, learning disabled? Although of course we must be careful not to impose modern concepts, or to label without sound reasoning. Could Hanna reason? We are not given information about her upbringing; we never see or hear about any family members. Except at the end we hear she has none. We can, however, understand and empathise with her situation to a certain extent as it is presented, she is illiterate, uneducated, alone, emotionally stunted [is she the quintessential working class pawn, cog in a system who cannot see the whole system?]. We cannot excuse what she has done, she is not us. Right? She is not forgiven by the Jewish daughter of the women who survived the fire; she does not deserve her forgiveness. Michael is placed in the uncomfortable position of having to offer Hanna's estate to this woman. He was as much a victim as this lady, he seeks her out and in part confides in her because he has a unity with this women but she is not prepared to relate to him, to be open to him because she cannot afford to allow herself to imagine Hanna as a human being. The relationship between Michael and Hanna although human also has a criminal quality; it contains elements which ensure its rejection from all spheres. Yet on screen it is portrayed with such tenderness. The viewer experiences the tenderness, the heaviness, and the depth of this relationship. How could such a tender relationship be abusive? We saw it with our own eyes, there was no violence. There were, however, insidious controlling elements; detachment and cruelty, expectations imposed as rules. It was a relationship between two parities that possess unequal levels of power. Hanna is an adult, Michael a child. This power balance is somewhat confused by the revelation that Hanna cannot read, Michael gains power from his ability to read but is this enough power to make the relationship equal. Just as the young Jewish girls in the camp did not voluntarily read to Hanna, nor did Michael. Michael is not equipped to make the decision to enter in to an adult relationship, this is demonstrated by his fear at the beginning of their affair when he catches a glimpse of Hanna nude, and he sees her looking back at him. She is not angry or reproaching instead she is intrigued, this frightens him and he runs.
We regularly witness Michael being placed in uncomfortable positions he did not chose, he is left with secrets that control him. Watching her court hearing he feels alone in the knowledge that Hanna cannot read and therefore she could not have written the report that will lead to her infinite imprisonment. Hanna cannot read. He owns secrets that could change the trajectory of Hanna’s life. It seems as though Hanna also is the treasurer of secrets that could have altered Michael’s life. Does she consider that their affair was misguided and should not have occurred? Just as she had changed his trajectory, just as he was pulled out of his adolescent world and given responsibilities towards a woman he owed nothing to, this happens again during her court hearing but this time he accepts his true level of responsibility over the level he feels he should have - he does not need to save Hanna. As an adult he chooses to find a job and a home for the aging Hanna who is to be released from prison. During their final meeting he is reticent and unsure of their relationship or of whether he wishes to be there and how much he wishes to give, but she helps him by saying "it is over isn’t it", she feeds off his detachment and comes to realise that she can no longer have the sensual relationship they enjoyed, the relationship she understood. She kills herself as a response to this and her impending release in to a world she will not understand, as far as she is concerned everything is finished, complete, like a clear task with defined stages, she has completed everything and there is nothing left for her now.
There are reoccurring themes in this film and one of the themes seems to be reliving the same situation. Michael and Hanna both seem to be reliving foundational experiences as an attempt to regain control. Did Hanna kill herself because she had nothing left to learn or because once again she would be released in to a world she did not understand? Was she complete? The Jewish daughter of the lady who survived the camp fire says to Michael “The camps were not universities. There was nothing to learn from being in them or from visiting them." She does not wish to revisit the torture, she cannot, and she must close that chapter for her survival. Is this also true of Michael’s memories with Hanna? Was Hanna the only one who learnt something from their relationship? Was there nothing to learn in the relationship for Michael, was the result only damage?
There seems to be constant parallels drawn between Hanna and Michael’s relationship and the relationship between those imprisoned in the holocaust camp and the agencies who imprisoned them. The day to day banal actions contain the possibility of damage or inspiration. A constant struggle between the importance of seeing the whole versus the importance of the details.
Right? [One interpretation] Maybe. Michael is unwell when they meet; she uses her strengths [quick reactions, orderly, decisive] to alleviate his distress thereby inspiring an unintentional but needed connection. Hanna is a lonely character or at least a solitary character; she does not appear to be capable of forethought or malicious intent. She is task focused, hard working, clean and orderly. She does not appear to have a complex interiority. Later on we see these situational characteristics repeated when she recounts the fire incident at the holocaust camp. She says she could not let the people out of the burning barn because there would have been disorder, she was commanded to keep them locked up. She asks the judge what he would have done, although this is a dramatic point that seems to speak to her indomitable and domineering nature, in part she seems to be asking because she still does not know what else she could have done. She cannot divert from the rules, or the rules as she sees them, from the object of her employment even when people’s lives are at stake. Michael’s law professor reminds him that the verdict of murder requires intent to be proven. Did she intend to kill those in the burning barn through action or omission? Did Hanna intend to abuse Michael? Did she intend to impact his life to the extent that she did? How to discern intent and the impact intent has on judgement of behaviours seems to be a recurring issue. Hanna diverts from societies rules when she takes up with a 15 year old boy, yet she would not divert from her commands to save lives. It is almost as though she cannot see the connection, or there is no stability or continuity to her moral code. She cannot see the grand scheme of morality as it applies to her life. We are reminded of this when sat in a bath tub; they are both naked and Michael is reading lady Chatterley’s lover, she exclaims with a straight face and an adamant expression that this book is filthy. We return to the issue of cleanliness. Was Hanna religious? Sat in the court house during Hanna’s trial Michael is visibly shocked by the revelation that Hanna made the young girls in the camp read to her because the details reveal the parallels with his own situation. Are we to assume that education allows us to do this? That education enables us to reflect on our own world with the tools of literary fiction, philosophy, history. What does it mean to be educated? What does it give you? How does it affect your internal world, the way you function in the external world? It seems as though the ability to read represents education, knowledge, knowledge as power.
This film highlights the ambiguity of roles. The roles we give each other, and the roles we take for ourselves. Michael and Hanna at points are reduced to their roles, their functions. He is reduced to his functions, he is a reader, and he is a lover, he is a "kid", a son, just as Hanna is a bus conductor, or Hanna is a camp guard. We see how these roles guide and restrict, how to an extent we live out our given and chosen roles as we imagine we should. It also rather cleverly explores the ambiguity of the perpetrator and victim roles. At points they seem interchangeable or at the least confused. It shows us how perpetrators benefit from their victims; Hanna benefits from Michael and the young girls in the camp who read to her - she is entertained, comforted, engaged, educated and eventually the tapes she receives from Michael while she is in prison help her learn to read, she is given something she desperately needs, something valuable. Learning to read marks a change in status, a change in understanding; it allows her to think, to reflect. We also see how perpetrators become needed by the victim; in this case a physical enmeshing occurs. She washes, nurtures, and to an extent orders his life - impacting his internal world, he must leave at a certain time each day to be with her, to read to her. She is in charge, responsible, capable, comforting, and satisfying.
If we are in any doubt about the nature of Hanna and Michael’s relationship the court scenes provide the viewer with an external social judgement through which to view Hanna. They find her guilty of murdering 300 people and send her to prison for life. She is deemed to have been unfit for purpose retrospectively and unfit for any future purpose in society. This decision seems to arise because she is not able to make the minute moral decisions that protect her and those around her from harm. We are left to ponder why she is unable, is she mentally or morally deficient, learning disabled? Although of course we must be careful not to impose modern concepts, or to label without sound reasoning. Could Hanna reason? We are not given information about her upbringing; we never see or hear about any family members. Except at the end we hear she has none. We can, however, understand and empathise with her situation to a certain extent as it is presented, she is illiterate, uneducated, alone, emotionally stunted [is she the quintessential working class pawn, cog in a system who cannot see the whole system?]. We cannot excuse what she has done, she is not us. Right? She is not forgiven by the Jewish daughter of the women who survived the fire; she does not deserve her forgiveness. Michael is placed in the uncomfortable position of having to offer Hanna's estate to this woman. He was as much a victim as this lady, he seeks her out and in part confides in her because he has a unity with this women but she is not prepared to relate to him, to be open to him because she cannot afford to allow herself to imagine Hanna as a human being. The relationship between Michael and Hanna although human also has a criminal quality; it contains elements which ensure its rejection from all spheres. Yet on screen it is portrayed with such tenderness. The viewer experiences the tenderness, the heaviness, and the depth of this relationship. How could such a tender relationship be abusive? We saw it with our own eyes, there was no violence. There were, however, insidious controlling elements; detachment and cruelty, expectations imposed as rules. It was a relationship between two parities that possess unequal levels of power. Hanna is an adult, Michael a child. This power balance is somewhat confused by the revelation that Hanna cannot read, Michael gains power from his ability to read but is this enough power to make the relationship equal. Just as the young Jewish girls in the camp did not voluntarily read to Hanna, nor did Michael. Michael is not equipped to make the decision to enter in to an adult relationship, this is demonstrated by his fear at the beginning of their affair when he catches a glimpse of Hanna nude, and he sees her looking back at him. She is not angry or reproaching instead she is intrigued, this frightens him and he runs.
We regularly witness Michael being placed in uncomfortable positions he did not chose, he is left with secrets that control him. Watching her court hearing he feels alone in the knowledge that Hanna cannot read and therefore she could not have written the report that will lead to her infinite imprisonment. Hanna cannot read. He owns secrets that could change the trajectory of Hanna’s life. It seems as though Hanna also is the treasurer of secrets that could have altered Michael’s life. Does she consider that their affair was misguided and should not have occurred? Just as she had changed his trajectory, just as he was pulled out of his adolescent world and given responsibilities towards a woman he owed nothing to, this happens again during her court hearing but this time he accepts his true level of responsibility over the level he feels he should have - he does not need to save Hanna. As an adult he chooses to find a job and a home for the aging Hanna who is to be released from prison. During their final meeting he is reticent and unsure of their relationship or of whether he wishes to be there and how much he wishes to give, but she helps him by saying "it is over isn’t it", she feeds off his detachment and comes to realise that she can no longer have the sensual relationship they enjoyed, the relationship she understood. She kills herself as a response to this and her impending release in to a world she will not understand, as far as she is concerned everything is finished, complete, like a clear task with defined stages, she has completed everything and there is nothing left for her now.
There are reoccurring themes in this film and one of the themes seems to be reliving the same situation. Michael and Hanna both seem to be reliving foundational experiences as an attempt to regain control. Did Hanna kill herself because she had nothing left to learn or because once again she would be released in to a world she did not understand? Was she complete? The Jewish daughter of the lady who survived the camp fire says to Michael “The camps were not universities. There was nothing to learn from being in them or from visiting them." She does not wish to revisit the torture, she cannot, and she must close that chapter for her survival. Is this also true of Michael’s memories with Hanna? Was Hanna the only one who learnt something from their relationship? Was there nothing to learn in the relationship for Michael, was the result only damage?
There seems to be constant parallels drawn between Hanna and Michael’s relationship and the relationship between those imprisoned in the holocaust camp and the agencies who imprisoned them. The day to day banal actions contain the possibility of damage or inspiration. A constant struggle between the importance of seeing the whole versus the importance of the details.