The film "The Reader" Deep Disconnection in Postwar Germany

2022年11月17日

1958 年のドイツ。15歳のマイケルは気分の悪くなったところを21歳年上のハンナに助けられた。二人はベッドを共にするようになる。やがて、ハンナはマイケルに本の朗読を頼むようになりマイケルの想いは深まっていく。ある日、彼女は突然マイケルの前から姿を消す。数年後、法学専攻の大学生になったマイケルは、ハンナと法廷で再会する。彼女は戦時中の罪に問われ、ある秘密を隠し通したため、無期懲役の判決を受けた。時は流れ、結婚と離婚も経験したマイケルは、ハンナの最後の"朗読者"になろうと決心した。彼女の服役する刑務所に物語の朗読を吹きこんだテープを送り続けるのだった。(English) In Germany in 1958, 15-year-old Michael is saved from a bad mood by Hanna, 21 years older than him. They begin to share a bed. Soon, Hannah starts to ask Michael to read to her, and Michael's feelings for her deepen. Then, one day, she suddenly disappears from Michael's life. A few years later, Michael, now a college student majoring in law, meets Hannah again in court. She is accused of wartime crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment for keeping a secret. Time passes, and Michael, married and divorced, decides to be Hanna's last "reader." He continues to send tapes of his readings to the prison where she is serving her sentence.

The film "The Reader" Deep Disconnection in Postwar Germany

Original title: The Reader

Country of Origin] USA, Germany

Release Date: 2009/6/19

Based on the book: "The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink, published in 1995

Synopsis

One rainy day, Michael Berg, then 15 years old, feels sick on his way home from school and is taken care of by a woman whose name he does not know.

He is taken care of by an unknown woman. Later, he discovers he is ill and stays there for several months.

When he recovers, he finds the woman's residence on foot, and they meet again, and after a while, they have a relationship. Her name is Hannah Schmitz.

One day, at Hannah's request, Michael reads a book to her, and reading becomes a habit for the two.

The readings included Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and Homer's "The Odyssey." Suddenly, Hannah disappears.

As a university student, Michael attends a trial for Nazi war crimes and unexpectedly sees Hanna as a defendant.

She had been a guard in a concentration camp during World War II.

The trial, which lasted several weeks, reveals what kind of cases she was involved in during the war.

The charges brought against her at the trial were probably more severe than the facts, but for one reason or another, she made no excuse, and the trial proceeded against Hanna.

Michael visited the site of the concentration camp where she had worked during the war and pondered about Hanna and the Nazi war crimes.

Hanna was sentenced to life imprisonment at the end of June of that year.

Michael read The Odyssey to Hanna, recorded it, and sent the tape to the prison.

In the fourth year, he receives a letter from her.

He visited the prison and met her again.

Michael was preparing for her release, but Hanna was found to have committed suicide on the day of her departure.

Her will was also found, and Michael fulfills her wishes and visits her grave for the only time.

In the second half of this film, I was confused by the heroine's actions in the Holocaust. Why did she commit suicide?

This heroine was ashamed that she was illiterate.

Because of this complex, I felt somewhat uncomfortable with her inability to form relationships with others other than to dominate them.

This heroine was silenced by her shame and took on her guilt.

This overreaching behavior somehow seems unnatural to me.

Personally, it seems that this heroine was representing Germany, the country that disrupted the world in World War II.

If the heroine is Germany, it overcame "illiteracy = shame = past war crimes" through its efforts.

Are the crimes committed by Germany before and during the war as one-sidedly described in the world today?　Or should they be re-examined?

It seems to me that the crimes committed by Hannah are claimed to be legal under the legal system of the time.

The film depicts through Hanna that the German people and the German state, who lived through that period, continued to be subjected to one-sided condemnation after the war.

And "Hanna = Germany during the war" tries to tell "the protagonist Michael = a young postwar German" why she had to commit the crime.

Michael, however, refuses to accept her words.

Hanna committed suicide, not because of the seriousness of her crime.

She died of despair because "postwar Germany" did not truly understand the reasons for the actions of "prewar and wartime Germany = Nazi Germany."

The Germans of that time, which constituted Nazi Germany, were by no means deviants or fanatics.

Is it your contention that they were supporters of "dictatorship" out of necessity in the world situation and social environment of the time?

The "understanding of the inevitability of history" has not been fully achieved in postwar Germany.

The "Ghosts of Hanna-Nazi Germany" are not given a chance to explain themselves.

The message to the next generation was not accepted and disappeared in despair.

They covered all the crimes of the war with "Hitler the Madman."

It is a horror that the entire German nation does not see the true nature of its historical mistakes.

This film has a sense of danger of misjudging the truth of history.

The film ends with a scene of history taking over, with the main character Michael telling his daughter about his "shame = relationship with Hannah."

If Hanna represents Germany, the scene in which she makes intense love to the boy Michael also demonstrates the strength of patriotism that naturally arises in a nation and its people.

Also, the fact that Michael did not write to Hanna in prison shows the contradiction of the modern German youth, who cannot relate to past Germany because of love.

Also, Japan's postwar period seems to cover up its "history" even more than Germany's.

Examining what was done in the past by a people has an essential value for those of us today who live in the same climate, history, and culture.

I felt this film emits a strong power by depicting the truth of such history.

The film "The Reader" Deep Disconnection in Postwar Germany