4.23, World Book Day.
A festival that has been almost forgotten by the world.
study.
An increasingly old habit.
As someone who feeds on new media, sir seems to want to catch up on newer hot spots and talk about more trendy movies.
Who wants to listen to your lectures?
Sir is a bit willful today.
Tell an old film about reading.
For the quiet, lonely, old-fashioned you—
The Reader
The Reader
Classics don't need to be introduced.
Douban Top 250, Golden Globe, Oscar and European Film Awards Best Film Nomination.
Known as Kate Winslet's biggest-scale performance ("Titanic" those few seconds are pediatrics), she also won the Oscar for this film.
There are already too many film reviews and interpretations of "The Reader".
It's really a wonderful film, with its cinematography, soundtrack, performance, themes... It's all superior.
It can be appreciated by everyone from many different perspectives and derived insights.
Sir has no intention of expanding today.
Let me be clear about one simple thing:
What unique meanings can books (or words) bring us?
Let's start with a brief story.
It started with a forbidden love.
A 15-year-old boy meets a 36-year-old middle-aged mature girl.
It was the summer when desire was ignited, and the two hit it off without too much ambiguity.
When we meet twice, roll on the sheets.
And it's still a daily roll, a fancy roll.
I have to say that the film casting vision is precise.
The woman Kate plays, strong, direct, and stubborn.
You can feel a near-determined determination in the eyes of Kate, who was 33 at the time.
The fresh meat played by David Klaus is clear, delicate and sensitive.
Looking at the same look, at a young age, he can bring a trace of sadness in his vulnerability.
This also paved the way for various decisions in his middle age later in the story.
Speaking of which, is the story trying to take the vulgar route of hunting curiosity?
No.
In addition to physical relationships, there is also spiritual communication— reading aloud.
That's right.
Instead of reading books together, the boy reads to her every day before making love.
In Michael's heartfelt recitation, Hannah showed her sensual side.
Sometimes laugh out loud like a child.
When I read about sadness, I cry until my heart is broken.
But she didn't know at this point —
Reading books will affect her whole life.
How does it affect?
Since Sir is talking about books today, the clues must be found in the text.
The film hastily mentions a line, which sir sees as the title of the whole work.
In class, the boy was distracted, and his mind was full of his sister's flesh.
At this time, the voiceover retains a passage from the teacher:
At the heart of Western literature lies the idea of secrecy.
The character is based entirely on certain information that is not made public between people.
The reasons for this may be varied, or despicable, or noble.
So much so that people were determined to keep their mouths shut.
Remember this line.
In Sir's view, it is the title of the whole film -
It explains the correct way to open a book.
To read a book is not to see what it says, nor to see what it does not say.
People who can really read books will experience and ponder, and they choose not to say anything.
pity.
In order to understand this truth, both of them sacrificed a lifetime.
The story takes a sharp turn from a third.
There are no more fragrant shots, and the liveliness of summer, the lust of men and women has been lost.
Entering the winter, the streets that accompany Germany gradually become cold and wet.
Hannah disappeared for eight years.
In eight years, Michael grew up to be a law student.
Eight years later, the whole of Europe is still trying to recover from the haze of World War II, and various rehabilitation movements are surging.
Until a trial.
As a student, Misha followed the teacher to observe and study.
Who knows, the defendant's seat stands impressively with the woman he knows best—
What happened in eight years?
Why would she be charged with Nazism and make everyone want to kill her?
A detail.
Before Hannah disappeared, she was promoted.
As a conductor conductor, she was appreciated by her superiors and no longer had to sell tickets with the train, but moved into the office to work.
This is going to be a white-collar worker!
Behold.
Hannah was not happy at all, but went home to pack up her things and leave, never to be seen again.
From the perspective of others, this is a promotion.
But in her opinion, it is a big trouble—
Entering the office means having to deal with words.
You may want to ask: Doesn't she love to read, doesn't she have a lot of time to read?
This is where the director's poison comes in.
All the reversals of the film, by no means explicit, but through all kinds of inconspicuous clues, and then lead you to detonate the most reluctant fact.
You remember.
She loved books, but never looked at them.
She loves stories, but looks helpless at the menu when she orders on a date.
At this time, Hannah happened to face a key sentence about words again-
The judge wanted to confirm through her handwriting that the most heinous document was not written by her.
Hearing this, Michael in the auditorium breathed a sigh of relief.
Yes, he remembered too.
Hannah is illiterate, she certainly didn't write it!
The result?
His later expression went like this:
It turned out that Hannah hadn't spoken out about the fact that she couldn't read.
In the face of the pen and paper handed by the judge, she pushed it away and happily admitted the guilt that did not belong to her.
For her, the shame of illiteracy was even greater than the shame of Nazi accomplices.
Hannah was sentenced to life in prison under Michael's watchful eye.
You want to ask again, why?
The other defendants, setting aside their relationship, were sentenced to only four years.
And she, obsessively, swallowed the charges alone and was imprisoned for life.
- Isn't this a multiple-choice question that normal people do?
Exactly, what Reader has to do is to overthrow all kinds of common sense, rules, and facts that we think.
After that, the film switches rhythms again.
It becomes warm.
"The Reader" reflects its thickness in constantly switching emotions.
You can think of it as a regretful but poignant romance;
Or think of it as a heavy and profound war reflection film;
Even think of it as an inspirational film in the grand history of small people fighting against fate.
Hannah in prison was reborn.
Middle-aged Misha recorded the books on tape and sent them to Hannah in prison.
Hannah, who has entered old age, listens to the tape and makes a step that she has never been able to take——
Learn to read.
This scene moved many people.
But let Sir say that the reader is more than that.
In Sir's view, it is a literary film that can reshape your perception of the world, of people, of emotions.
What do you mean?
First of all, it has the ability to create accidents that is different from ordinary movies.
Simply put, with "normal" thinking, you can never guess where it is going.
Just a few examples.
Misha knew Hannah couldn't read, and he was a law student.
He should know that testifying on his own will help Hannah reduce her sentence and ensure that the court is fair, which is also the duty of every citizen.
Logically, he should have stood up and testified.
Does he have one?
No.
After eight years of separation, the woman who was once the most loved may become a prisoner for the rest of her life.
Logically, he should have gone to see her.
Explain why he didn't testify in court, or just say goodbye.
He thought.
He did the same.
But as she reached the prison door, Misha stopped and turned back.
More than that, but Sir is also inconvenient to continue spoilers.
Sir remembers gritting his teeth the first time he saw the movie—
Why? Why, exactly?
Now Sir understands.
Clues are still to be found in the book.
The film repeatedly mentions two books —
Homer's Odyssey, Pavlovich Chekhov's The Woman with the Puppy.
First of all, Homer, as a famous blind poet in ancient Greece, referred to Hannah's blindness.
She was not only illiterate.
She is even more of a "blind heart" who is numbed by war and swallowed up by fate.
During World War II, she changed jobs and joined the Nazis and worked as a guard in a concentration camp.
She imprisoned 300 Jewish women and children in a church that had been burned alive by a bombing fire.
In court, the judge asked her why she didn't open the door of the church.
Everyone was in a hurry to argue —they didn't know it later.
Only Hannah admitted that she knew the church was on fire.
How does she justify?
There was no justification, because she would not argue, but only asked the judge in reverse —
If it were you, how would you do it?
She didn't realize it, it was 300 lives.
All she knew was that she was a guard, and that the responsibility of the guard was to look after the prisoners.
If I let them out, I can't look at people.
Everyone knows that this is "banal evil".
This also explains why Misha did not stand up on the spot to testify, but afterwards recorded Hannah to help her read.
He saw Hannah's "blindness", and he knew even more that the most vulnerable thing about a blind person is dignity.
So, in his own way, in a way that respected Hannah, he gradually brought her back to consciousness.
The second book, The Man with the Puppy, is about a love affair.
A forbidden, and no-good love.
Refers to the relationship between Hannah and Misha.
The most impressive scene in the film comes from the separation of the two when they are released from prison.
Say goodbye to the moment and pay attention to Kate's body.
Twice leaning forward slightly, she wanted to hold the man in front of her who would affect her life.
But twice, she resisted.
Reading had completely changed her.
At the end of the movie, Misha asks Hannah, what did you learn from the book?
Her answer was simple:
"I learned to read."
Is that really all there is to it?
Remember what Sir said at the beginning – think about what she chose not to say.
She chose not to say it, and she learned to regret and guilt.
After 20 years in prison, she donated all her savings to the Jewish descendants who had been killed by her.
She chose not to say it, and she learned to cherish the most precious memories of her emotions, rather than desperately trying to get them as she did in the first place.
Isn't that what books (or words) bring to us the most:
It preserves the imagination to the greatest extent possible, and it also allows us to escape from the mold framed by real life.
Specifically —
Reading, let us realize that in addition to the perfect and happy love, there are regrets beyond lust;
In addition to the jurisprudence of justice and fairness, there is also dignity above justice;
In addition to the accepted morality of the world, there is also the unassailable human nature;
Wait a minute.
None of this can be mentioned on a festival alone.
It needs, and should, leave us to exhaust a lifetime of questioning.
The picture in this article comes from the network