The reader

 The Reader:

Story:

It is a film about complicated emotions. 2 very different but alike people get connected to each other. It is about sexual desires of both a middle aged woman and teenage boy. We and the boy think that they get connected over the books. The way he reads and the way she listens to it. Different stories, different emotions. He reads to her, she gets emotionally attached to the stories. She laughs, she cries. At a point when he is reading some sexual content, she stops him and tells him that “it is disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself”, but we see that they are sitting naked in a bathtub. He is a 15 year old boy and she is of her mother’s age. We don’t know what is morally right. We just want to know her more. After some weeks of relationship, the boy is totally involved with her. He can not think about anything else. He has already confessed that he loves her. One day when he asks more, may be just reciprocation but she doesn’t know how to. She leaves him that day.

He sees her again, in court. She has been convicted for 300 murders. We as viewers can not believe what we are hearing. She was a guard at SS camp. Buy why? She was a ticket collector when we knew her. Do we feel bad for her? She never denies that she did what she was convicted for but there are some more women along with her who are also convicted but they never accept. A girl who survived the camp tells that this woman used to take young girls aside and make them read to her. Was that out of good will? Or she was just using them to fulfill her desires of reading?At the court session we and the boy get to know that she is illiterate. Was she even a good person? Was she just selfish? How could she let those girls die not feel bad about it? All she could tell was “it was her duty as a guard to do it.” Can we buy this? Morally maybe we shouldn’t but we do. At a point when other women blame her for everything, we know he can save her but we don’t know if he should. As the boy himself doesn’t know if he should.

She gets lifetime imprisonment but she seems at peace. But when she receives the tapes sent by him reading books, she seems happy. She learns to read in jail. We see that if she is willing, she is strong enough to do it but then could she save those 300 people?

She sends her life’s savings to the survived girl, he delivers it to the girl but she is not ready to forgive her. Again the thought comes to the surface. Was she really a good woman? 

What is right or wrong? It’s all about perception. She never acknowledged other’s emotions or societal norms of morality. Maybe she was right at her place, maybe not.