BEFORE: Kate Winslet carries over from "The Mountain Between Us", and I'm back on World War II as a topic, just in time. See, I told you I'd get here.
I've done some real next-level linking already this year, working in films with largely Swedish casts, like "Smilla's Sense of Snow" and "Midsommar", which both thankfully had some English or American cast members to work with. Now I'm going mostly German with the next three films, and I'm saved once again by the fact that they at least share actors between them. I've already given up any thought of linking to the Bergman films after this little German excursion, it's possible, but then I can't link away. I noticed too late that this film has Lena Olin in it, and she could have been a link to "Fanny & Alexander", but that would mean dropping the Hitler-based films, or watching them on a date other than 4/20. No way, I've worked too hard to make that happen, so I'd rather re-schedule the Bergman chain for next January, if it comes to that.
I've also got a loose plan for next February, if you can believe that. I had about 10 or 11 romance films that link together, then a couple little mini-chains of 3, 4 or 5 films. I took a stab at finding other romances NOT on my list that could link those chainlets together, and it is possible. However, I'm going to need to dip into the romance category just before Mother's Day in order to keep the chain unbroken, so the trick will be deciding between two paths, both get me to Mother's Day, but I need to watch the less-linkable romance films, and hope that next February's line-up doesn't collapse as a result. If this year was any indication, I had a list of 45 or so films that linked together so many different ways, that in the end I could shift them around on the fly and still be relatively certain that I could link back up with the chain, and still end up in the same place.
Ralph Fiennes (also in today's film) is involved heavily in this decision - do I watch two more films with him in May, or three? If I reduce it to two, that delays two films to next February that link together, and also link to other films on the docket. That's the safer play, keep as many linking options open as possible, clear off the films that NEED to be part of the chain this year, ones I don't necessarily have a way to get to in the future. So that's decided then, unless I change my mind later. (Also, which is a more "romance-y" kind of film? "The Wings of the Dove" or "The Constant Gardener"? That's something to consider, also.)
THE PLOT: In post-WWII Germany, nearly a decade after his affair with an older woman came to a mysterious end, law student Michael Berg re-encounters his former lover as she defends herself in a war-crime trial.
AFTER: For that matter, I wasn't really sure how "romance-y" today's film was going to be. Or yesterday's for that matter. Certain situations don't seem to lend themselves to romance, like being stranded on a mountaintop together, or, say, a Nazi war criminal on trial. Yet novelists and screenwriters persist in sticking romances into these stories. Oh, and a big SPOILER ALERT for today's review if you haven't seen (or read) "The Reader". I think there's probably no way to talk about the film without mentioning the twist/reveal/secret. Don't say I didn't warn you, though it's probably pretty easy to figure out.
The romance, or as close as Germans get to it, comes into play when Michael Berg, a teen boy, encounters Hanna, an older single woman living in Berlin in 1958. He's come down with scarlet fever (last seen in "Little Women", and hey, another pandemic tie-in...) and stops to rest in the lower courtyard of a building. There he meets the woman, a resident who offers him water. Months later, after recovering and self-isolating, he returns with flowers to thank her for her kindness. She puts him to work doing chores (I guess that's the German equivalent of showing affection) and afterwards, allows him to take a bath. Before long she's seducing him, and probably there's some long German word for "casual sex with an older woman who's emotionally unavailable but still really digs good hygiene".
The relationship serves a purpose, it's the boy's introduction to relationships and sex and how to deal with emotionally distant German women - good experience all around - and for her, there's intellectual stilmulation as she's constantly asking about his schoolwork and getting him to read to her. They go on a cycling trip together in the countryside, but eventually the age difference proves to be something of an issue, and she's promoted to the trolley company's head office, and moves without contacting the teen again.
Years later, when Michael is studying law, his professor takes the class to watch the legal trial of five people accused of crimes committed when working as guards in concentration camps. Michael recognizes one of the accused as Hanna, and once again he is obsessed with her. This opens up a debate in his legal class about the culpability of Nazis who were "only following orders", and for that matter, whether something such as the Holocaust could possibly be both technically legal (according to the laws of the Third Reich) and blatantly immoral at the same time. Key evidence comes from a Holocaust survivor who was a little girl at the time, and she describes how Hanna would choose inmates at the camp to read to her on some evenings. Meanwhile, the other accused guards band together and single out Hanna as the guard in charge, the one who wrote and signed off on all the reports of the atrocities committed.
Michael, however, has figured out Hanna's secret, and determined that while she is culpable in some way, she could not have written the reports. However, Hanna refuses to admit her secret in court, and is therefore sentenced to life in prison. I'm not convinced that this tracks logically, I mean, there are things to be ashamed of that don't seem important when compared to a life sentence. Imagine the trial of, say, Phil Spector, and if he could prove his innocence by admitting that he had thinning hair and needed to wear a wig. If it came down to that (not that it would) don't you think he'd admit to something mildly embarrassing, if it could clear his name? Or if O.J. Simpson could prove that he was somewhere else on the night his wife was murdered, like say he was with a hooker at the time, wouldn't it make sense to admit that, rather than go to prison?
And also, huge NITPICK POINT regarding her secret. The Germans, again, are known for their efficiency. Would it make sense that she would be working in the camps, or later working on the trolley, and nobody else ever figured out her secret? How did she work, get around, make it through life on a daily basis without, you know.... it just doesn't track on some level. Remember, she got promoted to a clerical job at the trolley company, wouldn't someone there have figured out her secret in about 10 seconds?
Michael is permitted to visit Hanna at this point, but apparently can't go through with it - this also seemed a bit contrived, that the one person who figured out her secret and could convince her to reveal it, to clear her name, can't seem to pull the trigger on making this happen. Instead he goes on with his life, waits a few decades, then starts sending her audiotapes of him reading classic novels to her. This sort of seems similar to "The Professor and the Madman", both films have people in prison with plenty of time on their hands, who end up finding solace in reading or reading-adjacent literary pursuits, like finding quotes for dictionary entries.
For everyone stuck at home these days, it's a sign - now's the time to catch up on reading (I'm still 4 weeks behind on comic books, but without new ones being printed, it's an excellent chance for me to get current) or if that's not your thing, tackling that new video-game you've been having trouble getting to, or I guess there's also home improvements and household chores once you run out of TV and movies to watch. If you really have to, I guess you can take a whack at that screenplay or novel you've been meaning to write, just bear in mind that we've already got a ton of terrible books and films being written right now, the world doesn't really need another. Just saying.
By the way, I obviously had Hitler's birthday in mind when planning my schedule, but today is an anniversary of a different sort - April 19, 1943 was the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, an act of resistance that took place after the Nazis entered the ghettos in Poland to round up the remaining Jews. So there's today's history lesson for you kids.
Also starring Ralph Fiennes (last seen in "Holmes & Watson"), David Kross (last seen in "Race"), Bruno Ganz (last seen in "The Counselor"), Alexandra Maria Lara (last seen in "Rush"), Lena Olin (last seen in "Trespassing Bergman"), Vijessna Ferkic, Karoline Herfurth, Burghart Klaussner (last seen in "Bridge of Spies"), Linda Bassett (last seen in "Calendar Girls"), Hannah Herzsprung, Jeanette Hain (last seen in "The Young Victoria"), Susanne Lothar (last seen in "Anna Karenina"), Matthias Habich (last seen in "Enemy at the Gates"), Florian Bartholomai, Alissa Wilms, Friederike Becht, Sylvester Groth (last seen in "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."), Fabian Busch, Volker Bruch, Jürgen Tarrach (last seen in "Casino Royale"), Beata Lehmann,
RATING: 5 out of 10 prison library books
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