Flutterby™! : Life Update, with a look at The Reader

I've got a report Monday and Tuesday's trip to Safari West muddling around here somewhere, along with a few pictures. It was rainy and wet and cold and we had a blast and will be going back.

Last night we went to see The Reader (warning: Autoplay sound). We went because Charlene had gone with a friend to the matinee, and she came home and said "we have to go see this so we can talk about it", and we are talking about it, although there's at least as much mulling over the details on my own. And we immediately went over to Copperfield's and bought the book and the other book by Bernhard Schlink that they had on the shelves.

You can read the synopsis anywhere. In 1950s Germany, 15 year old Michael Berg has an affair with thirty-something Hanna Schmitz. She suddenly disappears. We catch up with Michael as a law student, where he's part of a class attending a trial of Holocaust perpetrators, and we watch as Hanna is on trial for shades of atrocity deeper than she actually committed because she's keeping a secret. A secret that Michael knows and could corroborate.

There are wonderful echoes throughout of responsibility and secrets and motivations, and the film is fantastically constructed. Some directors club you over the head with the symbols they use to reinforce the story (*cough* Kubrick *cough*), I got the feeling (which Charlene reaffirmed) that this film will reveal layers on subsequent viewings, but even on the first run through there's not a glance wasted. And some of the most revealing scenes are just glances.

In at least one place we're privy to information that Michael doesn't have, but the import of that didn't strike me until after we walked out of the theater so I feel like I got to experience the story as Michael did, and then again understanding another level of Hanna's actions.

And the film is also leading to some good discussions, like Hamas or Hannas, they're not black and white. Recommended.