"Der Vorleser" ("The reader") is a novel by German law professor and judge Bernhard Schlink. It was published in Germany in 1995 and in the United States in 1997. The good reviews about the book convinced director Stephen Daldry to bring the story to the big screen. And he did it succesfully because the film was nominated for several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Kate Winslet won the Academy Award for Best Actress because of her magnificent performance in this movie.

It tells the story of Michael Berg (David Kross/Ralph Fiennes), a German lawyer who, as a mid-teenager, in the fifty's had an affair with an older woman who suddenly disappeared, but reappeared in his life a few years later, as a defendant in a war crimes trial 'cause she was a guard at a Nazi concentration camp. This woman, Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), once helped young Michael when he was sick, that was the beginning of the affair, so to him it was quite shocking finding out what she had done as a guard, long before she met him.

However, according to the title of this post, I wanna talk about the two main elements in the movie: Guilt and Pride. When, as a law student, Michael observes the trial, he sees something that had always been in front of his eyes: Hanna's secret. Hanna admits that Auschwitz was an extermination camp and that women were gassed. But she she denies authorship of a report on a church fire, where 300 Jewish women died. Other defendants, ex Nazi guards like Hanna, insist she wrote the report, so the judge asks Hanna to provide a handwriting sample. All she has to do is take a piece of paper and write something down so the judge can compare the handwrittens. She's innocent of that fact. She did wrong but she didn't write the report. Nonetheless she refuses to provide the sample and admits guilt. At that moment, Michael remembers all those afternoons when, after or before sex, he used to read her his books. She never read any 'cause she said she liked the way he did it; the afternoon in that country restaurant when she didn't read the menu and now that she didn't want to give the sample; the secret is revelaed to him: Hanna is illiterate.

Why didn't she say it? Why did she prefered to admit guilt in something she didn't do than admit she can't read or write? is it because she feels guilty for what she did to those women and she inflicts herself a sentence she thinks she deserves? Or is she too proud to admit she's illiterate? Michael wanted to help Hanna and he went to the prison, he wanted to tell her he knew, that they could prove it, that maybe the judge could reduce her sentence. But when he was about to see her, he ran away. Why?

Many years after Hanna's imprisonment Michael (because he feels guilty?) sends her books along with tapes where he has recorded his voice reading the books. Through these books and tapes she learns how to read, and later how to write, she even writes letters to Michael which he does not responde. Why doesn't he? Does he feel guilty because he abandonded her years ago? Doesn't he love her anymore? Can't he forgive her past? He only goes to visit her when she's about to complete her sentence. Michael's now a grown up man and Hanna is an old lady. They're too far from that love affair fourty years ago and they feel the weight of guilt, pride and unforgiveness above them.

Hanna's suicide is the final point of a tragic story. The tragedy of the war crimes, the tragedy of her illiteracy, the tragedy of her pride, of his guilt; the tragedy of discovering the past of the loved one, a dark one; the tragedy of a love story where he didn't do anything to help her and when he decided to do one thing, he did it for obligation and not for love; the tragedy of a helping hand that came maybe too late and too weak.

One of the great movies about World War II that is not about Jewish people, but the Germans. Is a story of the defeated side, but so full of drama and emotions that we almost forget why is Hanna being judged. Because I think is one of the greatest and most accurate book adaptations of all times; and because of the perfomances of the cast (including the marvelous Bruno Ganz, who plays an iconic Adolf Hitler in "Der Untergang", another great movie) I give this movie a rating of 8,5/10 and consider it definitely as one of those films that must be seen.