Wow, I don't know what to make of this picture. It's so good as a fictional story that it feels like it could be a true one. It presents many moral dilemmas, not the least of which is it's treatment of Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) as almost a sympathetic character when in reality she was something of a monster. During her trial, Hanna uses a standard defense used by many former Nazi defendants who stated that they were merely doing their job in whatever capacity they were employed. In one respect, one could almost make the case that there was an element of mental illness involved in her make up, particularly when she comments on why she didn't allow the prisoners in the burning church an opportunity to escape and survive. There's that, and Hanna's overwhelming obsession to keep her illiteracy a secret, to the extent of taking the fall for the other women on trial with her who may have had even more culpability, if that were even possible.
I'd like to say that Kate Winslet deserved her Best Actress Win for the picture but I haven't seen any of the other films her competition appeared in. Strictly speaking though, Winslet's performance arcs through all the ranges of human experience one can imagine and presents a thoroughly conflicted character. Ralph Fiennes also turns in a worthy performance, and I would have to concur with another reviewer who felt that the character Michael Berg may indeed have lived a wasted life. His attempt at rehabilitating Hanna in her prison cell may have seemed noteworthy, but one wonders how much of it was done out of compassion and how much out of guilt.
What probably appalled me most about the story was when the five women on trial with Hanna all received a mere sentence of four years and three months for their role as concentration camp guards. Even if one were to apply some sort of moral equivalency to their role along side Hanna, the idea that Hanna received a life sentence made their punishment seem minor by comparison. All because their feigned indignation made Hanna out to be the leader of the group, when in fact, any one of them could have expressed some humanity during the church incident that the others might have fallen in line with.
I'd like to say that Kate Winslet deserved her Best Actress Win for the picture but I haven't seen any of the other films her competition appeared in. Strictly speaking though, Winslet's performance arcs through all the ranges of human experience one can imagine and presents a thoroughly conflicted character. Ralph Fiennes also turns in a worthy performance, and I would have to concur with another reviewer who felt that the character Michael Berg may indeed have lived a wasted life. His attempt at rehabilitating Hanna in her prison cell may have seemed noteworthy, but one wonders how much of it was done out of compassion and how much out of guilt.
What probably appalled me most about the story was when the five women on trial with Hanna all received a mere sentence of four years and three months for their role as concentration camp guards. Even if one were to apply some sort of moral equivalency to their role along side Hanna, the idea that Hanna received a life sentence made their punishment seem minor by comparison. All because their feigned indignation made Hanna out to be the leader of the group, when in fact, any one of them could have expressed some humanity during the church incident that the others might have fallen in line with.