*Spoiler Alert*

Firstly, look out for an excellent comment on the film from number-nine. Much of my sentiments about the movie is expressed well there.

The movie is filled with ideas that one should take sides with but it is difficult to figure out which side one would be on. For instance,

1. An older woman is having an affair with a 15 year old kid. Today, the legal implications are clear but I am sure it is every teen’s dream to be in the position anyway The situation calls for cringe worthy viewing and it would have been if it was the older  Michael Berg having an affair with the younger Hannah. The morality of the situation is ambiguous.
2. During the trial, we witness the once lovable Hannah in the courtroom accused of murder during WWII. When we know some person’s secrets (and the skeletons in their closet) does it change the fact that we liked (or even loved) the person once? Should knowledge of history (or lack there of) affect the way we relate to people? I don’t think it is easy to take a stand here either. The story takes an extreme case of a literally hundreds of skeletons in the closet but that is just a tease to see if the extent of crime affects how we react. Like Hannah says at some point “No I did not think about the war until the trial”, essentially claiming it it was done in the line of duty.
3. I suppose posing such dilemma is critical to involve the audience into the story and I recently watched a couple of very different movies that pose moral dilemmas too.
   1. In Dogville, honest, hard working folks start to bare teeth when they find an opportunity to oppress. When in the boots of the characters, it is difficult to realize the consequence of the actions. One can make a stretch to see that Hannah in the Reader probably could not make the right judgment during times of war. But as Grace from Dogville muses, sometimes, the best efforts put by a person is not good enough. It is likely that Michael thought during the trial that Hannah deserves the punishment.
   2. In another, not a particularly thought provoking film, Gone baby gone, a private detective is confronted with the question of letting a little girl stay with a loving family that kidnapped her or to return her to her drug addicted, alcoholic mother. He chooses to return the kid to her mother but pays the price of losing his girlfriend and finds that the kid does not get the care and attention she deserves. I guess this is a similar dilemma faced by Michael when he chose to withhold information that could lessen the sentence on Hannah and suffers the rest of his life in silence.
4. Toward the end of the movie, when Michael decides to visit Hannah, there is a sequence where he wants to get a sense of righteousness for his actions (of hiding information during the trial).
   • Michael: “So, Did you think about the past when you were in here?”
   • Hannah: With happiness, “About Us?”
   • Michael: “No, about what you did during the War.”
   • Hannah: “I never thought about it until the trial.”

   The movie tries so hard not to take sides on the issue, and is very successful in doing that.

I guess in the end Michael has to live through the consequences of choices / decisions he made. He tries to ease his guilt by sending Hannah, numerous tapes of books he used to read to her, following up on her last wishes and sharing her story with his daughter. But I guessing there is no simple cure to standing on any side of the fence.

Related posts:

1. the bicycle thief

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 2:46 pm and is filed under movie, musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.