Films Like The Reader -

Elara picked up the script. The logline read: In 1990s Berlin, a young translator begins an affair with a reclusive former Stasi officer, only to discover he is still protecting a horrifying secret from the Cold War.

The premiere was at a sleek arthouse theater in Manhattan. The audience was dressed in greys and blacks. They laughed knowingly at the one dry joke. They held their breath during the love scene. And when Klaus, in the final frame, walks into the Berlin sunshine—unpunished, unrepentant, merely complicated —a woman in the front row whispered, "Devastating." films like the reader

"You know," she said quietly, "the real Stasi officer your character is based on? His name was Gerhard. He died of a heart attack in 2005. He never spent a day in jail. He taught his granddaughter to play the piano." Elara picked up the script

Elara tried to insert a montage of actual Stasi victim testimonies. A quick, brutal cut to black-and-white photographs of real, broken people. Marcus vetoed it. "It breaks the spell," he said. "The audience needs to stay in the ambiguity. That’s the lesson of The Reader . You don't give them answers. You give them beautiful questions." The audience was dressed in greys and blacks

Elara looked at the sky. There were no stars. Just the flat, grey glow of the city reflecting off low clouds. She realized she had not made a film. She had made a mirror for people who wanted to look at the abyss and see only their own thoughtful reflection.