Merry Christmas, Kim. Fucking guys -- check this out -- the male writer moves along so well and then trips on his dick when it comes to interpreting the next logical place it should go -- which is what in the world in Hanna's tiny mind excused her of such predatory behavior towards someone so vulnerable?

Excerpt:

You do not need a Ph.D. in comparative literature to understand that Hanna's illiteracy symbolizes the willed ignorance of the German people about the genocide that was going on around them during World War II. Historically speaking, Germany was among the most literate nations and, also, one of the most morally conscientious ones — which is why Schlink's illiteracy conceit works so well. If you can read — whether it be a book or highly visible mass behavior — yet refuse to do so, then what might in another context be dismissed as no more than backwoods ignorance is transformed into a vast and palpable moral crime. I'm not certain that Schlink's novel or this film makes that connection explicit. Both have obligations to melodramatic plotting and characterization that to a degree blur the inherent point of the exercise. In the end, Hanna's defense of her crime — she allowed most of her prisoners to die in a fire in a church (hard to imagine a more obvious choice of crime scene) — comes down to, well, yes, what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil.

I don't deny the validity of Arendt's subtle, brutal reading of what is surely the most terrible event in a modern history that continues to be rife with such horror. But it is an idea that has lost much of its power to arrest our attention in fictional narrative. In some of the early Internet commentaries on this film, people natter on about the effect on the boy of having sex with an older, presumably exploitative woman — as if that's the big moral issue being explored here. Well, it didn't bother Oprah, who selected The Reader for her book club, and it doesn't bother me. At 15, boys are supposed to be having sex — or at least trying to have it. And I don't see how it is necessarily more scarring to have it with an experienced older woman than it is to have awkward, fumbling encounters with someone just as innocent as you are. Yes, Fiennes' older Michael is an emotionally distant, even chilly figure. But it does not necessarily follow that that is a result of his adolescent sexual encounters.

taken from Richard Schickel's review
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1865533,00.html

You know Kim, no one acknowledges the cost to Hanna; she bolted, and wound up a Siemens factory worker and a Nazi guard. Yeah, she would have become a Nazi one way or another anyway, but still, her running took resolve, at the very least.

Haven't you had enough Christmas? I made a mistake; Hanna was a Nazi before she bolted. However, everyone writes about the abandonment and betrayal, and not that The Kid was starting to act like A Man, and she was escaping his growing demands; plus her conscience caused her to sacrifice (a great flat and her job, probably). This would never happen in say "Lust, Caution." But both are cautionary tales in the vein of your argument.

This is my 4th comment!

In his review last night, Ray Pride observes parenthetically:

Reverse the sexual roles and if the movie could even find millions in finance for glossy production and greater-than-arthouse distribution, it would be called "The Raper."

And he blasted the editing. I have to agree. Can this movie please be stopped from getting a single award? It is so patronizing and garish and even manages to paint survivors as haughty and make an ass out of doe-eyed Ralph Fiennes. Combine that with the supporting lead actress losing her power to the boy she rapes, and the "what would you have done?" tricky confused defense with cut aways to her shocked lawyer, couldn't this movie just have been inspired by the book and taken the opportunity to drop some of the banal theme of secrets in favor of filling holes and drawing upon the interesting symbolism and parallels? I wish I could give "The Reader" The Worst Adaptation Ever Award, whether or not it stayed faithful to the book. And since there are missing arm bands in Valkyrie, I'd like The Kid in The Reader to wear an eyepatch in the love scenes, just for my satisfaction.

In the vein of not everyone is a critic, which I subscribe to, a shout out to "The Reader" reviews I read by Schickel, Hornaday, Fine and Longworth.

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