The Watcher...(thats me!)

I am sorry to inform everyone that alas I was unable to get to the cinema this week due to illness (vomiting in an office is never a good option to be honest) so for this weeks instalment I decided to take a pick from my lovefilm selection instead. So for your consideration this week is Stephen Daldry's The Reader. So it's still quite recent so I feel I can get away with it...and there's nothing you can do about it.
So what do we have here. holocaust drama. Kate Winslet (getting an Oscar AND bafta...fancy). reading? that's about as much as I knew before seeing this. Well in essence that's what I got. There is young Michael, good German boy in the late 1950's, something which I always like to see...the 1950's not the German boy...anyway...at the same time we are shown older Michael (Ralf Fiennes) in 1995. But let's forget old Mike for the time being more exciting things are happening in the 50's. Michael is ill, and someone who has just vomited myself I sympathised, and there to help the stumbling lad off home is stern Hanna, the rather blunt tram conductor. And naturally he had to thank her when he was better, I mean that's only polite. Well, while giving the unsuspecting lad a bath...he was sooty, fair enough...everything turns rather amorous. Now I know what your thinking, 15 year old boy, woman in her 30's...errrr no? but hang on a second give them a chance. The scenes to follow are very tastefully and sensitively handled. There was a genuine passion and care between the two and the relationship doesn't seem sleazy but heartfelt. They developed a routine to there affair...Michael would cycle after school to Hanna's, read to her whether it be The Odyssey or Chekhov's Lady with a Small Dog. I have to point out here how excellent David Kross was in the Young Michael role, he bought a real sense of maturity here to scene's which could quite easily become crude and tasteless.
However things cannot continue surely? and surely Michael is tempted to stay and have fun with his fiends and peers rather then read to Hanna. Another factor is that Hanna is approached by her boss and told she has a promotion, moved to do office work...this seems like a good thing right? then why does Hanna look so concerned? and when Michael comes to see her she has disappeared. hmmm the plot thickens...
Now I know what your thinking this can't be it for Han and Mike? no no. Michael is introduced again now he's at university in the swinging 60's, studying law. He seems quite cool and sophisticated and intellectual and stuff. Now, part of their course is to study the war trials from WW2 and the question of German guilt. And presented at the trial is his old love Hanna. Well Michael's appalled shock seems quite justified. An ex lover on trail for the murder of hundred's of Jewish women when she was working at Auschwitz... can't really get much worse? As things progress the case really hangs on one report on women being locked in a burning building and no guards released them. But wait a minute Hanna writing a report? Didn't she love people to read TO her...and Micheal and the audience deduce here she is illiterate (remember that whole promotion thing!) but rather then lose her pride she admits to the writing and it's a life sentence for Hanna. The question of morals and ethics is something that is a natural part of any holocaust film and this is no exception. How guilty is Hanna, she was only following orders after all? Well these are of course Micheal's thoughts. More time travel and there is Ralf's Michael, 1976, who takes a further interest in aging locked away Hanna. and as my motto is never to spoil plots I will leave things there...safe to say a surprisingly uplifting ending.
So what about this film. Like any holocaust film the problem I have is that the events are so terrible it's hard to believe and hard to relate to them. And I fell this happened here. I totally related to the first half. The tender relationship between two, in their own way, innocents. but when the film entered it's second half I felt my interest waining. It felt like we've seen it all before in various guises. And the message will always remain the same. Another problem I have (and this is very personal) whenever the actors in films set in Germany speak English but have German accents, it never quite seems right and can at times be comedic. Having said this many things are to be commended, the acting all round was superb. Kate certainly deserved all the acclaim she got. And David Klass is certainly one to watch in my opinion, and when is Ralf Fiennes bad? The holocaust topic was sensitively handled by Daldry without imposing opinions on the audience.
So a film that is certainly worth a look in my opinion. If you don't mind being slightly depressed...
So it gets a deserving 7/10.
Next week I promise to be on my feet and attend the cinema to review a new release!