Hannah Herzsprung Movies

Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes star in The Hours director Stephen Daldry's haunting period drama concerning the relationship between a 15-year-old German boy and a mysterious woman twice his age, and the way that it grows doubly complex when the man reencounters the woman years later and discovers a shocking truth about her past. Based on author Bernhard Schlink's best-selling novel of the same name, the film opens on the character of Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) in middle age -- cold, remote, and emotionally withdrawn. It then moves back in time to 1950s Berlin, where ailing teenager Michael (now played by David Kross) has fallen ill with fever, and is discovered in the street by Hanna, a woman in her thirties. After Michael recovers, the two immediately lapse into a torrid affair and Michael falls prey to the confusion of his own burgeoning sexuality. Their liaisons are often marked by Hanna's request that Michael read to her (hence the title). Later, when Michael returns to Hanna's flat and finds it deserted, her absence becomes an emotional blow for which he is completely unprepared, and indeed, scarred for life. The film then moves forward in time by eight years. Michael -- now a law student -- walks into a courtroom and comes across Hanna, one of a series of Nazi prison guards being tried for murderous war crimes during World War II. As he watches her on the witness stand, memories of their past experiences together bring him to the point of realization concerning a startling, long-buried truth about Hanna -- and Michael knows that if he divulges this information, it could modify the prison sentence handed out and dramatically alter her fate. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

An eleven year-old Turkish boy with something to prove, two mischief makes from a small town, and a cuckolded cop facing a personal crisis all make their way to the district of Kruezberg for the annual May Day celebration, only to find the volatile annual event spinning quickly out of control. Young Yavuz is convinced that he could impress his older brother if he could just "floor a cop," yet after meeting a former member of the student revolts of the 1960s, he gradually comes to view authority from a new perspective. Meanwhile, small time Mindenties Jacob and Pelle are all geared up for their big adventure in the capitol, though their aimless search for the city's best kebob shop and attempts to join a protest march for the anarchic "Black Book" eventually find the day taking a most unanticipated turn. And while hapless policeman Uwe and his partner have been assigned the task of maintaining order in Kruezberg, attempting to focus on the task at hand proves especially difficult do to the fact that Uwe's wife is openly seeing another man. As Uwe ponders his partner's suggestion of visiting a local bordello that caters kindly to cops, the perspective of each person involved serves to paint a uniquely different picture of the day's events. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide