"It doesn't matter what I feel. It doesn't matter what I think. The dead are still dead."
Hanna Schmitz
The Reader
2008
This film was incredible, I was emotionally speechless. This film addressed past knowledge while bringing it to full present interpretation. As The Reader embraced the conflicting relationship of a secretive acknowledgment, the idea that time can only heal the wounds may only suffice when knowing punishment for wrong doing is generally the result. The wounds one has sometimes just cannot remain open, sometimes they need to find closure.
Kate Winslet introduced us to a character, Hanna Schmitz. Kate portrayed this woman with beautiful acting and provocative stage presence. Hanna's character welcomed us into the world of a woman's inner struggle of secrets, past, present and future. The struggles to fear choices and truth in knowing the truth doesn't always set you free, audiences begin to embrace the role in each of us when it comes to terms with our indiscretions and our own secrets.
Does the past sometimes come back to haunt us?
Teenage Michael Berg (David Kross) portrayed the man with his own inner struggle. The fast acting illness of scarlet fever, the immediate care-taking from a stranger, Hanna, the love making of passion, the books he read, the travels him and Hanna took, the happiness of lust, and yet, the disappearance of the woman in which his love was all he knew.
Michael ages and with what he knows and his love for the perceived circumstance in which he never knew, we see a boy transform into a man, and a man confronting his own reality.
As time and Michael age, adult Michael (Ralph Fiennes) has to come to terms with what he's come to discover and the woman he continues to embrace, even though its cost his so much more; it has cost him his daughter. This film allows audiences to think about what many give up to find instant gratification and comfort. This short term longing for happiness, sometimes jeopardizes the long term result of coping and that reality comes full circle.
Are we asked to cope when never given the opportunity to know?
I think about those times where information was received out of shock and embarrassment. I think about the impact of how a story was told and the response to knowing such loss for words or emotions. We've all been in circumstances where we thought we were better off not knowing. However, learning that knowing was supposed to provide us explanation sometimes isn't the gist we are looking for, we seek meaning not understanding.
Can you forgive someone because they told you the truth? Or did the truth hurt worse than the lie?
I heard once that you are not telling a lie when you don't speak to it. So, I ask, when does it become a lie? Is it when you have fabricated the initial story to begin with, and then later reiterate the story with the truth? Or can a lie simply be not telling initially and finding out from someone else?
Truth and deception to protect ones own insecurity isn't always the proper execution of existence.
Truth in insecurity shall set one free, but ultimately, we cannot abide by such indiscretions when the secret we've been hiding has only damaged the ones we've grown to love. No matter the age, no matter the circumstance, each person tests themselves with honesty from time to time. Each person reflects on the choices they have made in each given circumstance, however, having the courage to admit the fault isn't always going to set you free, but, it can allow the soul to keep searching for explanation and allows the loved to hang on for meaning.
"I'm not frightened. I'm not frightened of anything. The more I suffer, the more I love. Danger will only increase my love. It will sharpen it, forgive its vice. I will be the only angel you need. You will leave life even more beautiful than you entered it. Heaven will take you back and look at you and say: Only one thing can make a soul complete and that thing is love. " - Michael
I find this story to explain people and their past, their present and their future. When we realize what we think is right at one time, can only constitute what is wrong at a later time. The message is to be sincere and think about those who adore you, because that pain is throwing salt on a wound and that knowledge is the truth in which was never supposed to be hidden.
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Comments
Excellent review, rated.