The Book Thief (4 Stars)

After my disappointment with "A New York Winter's Tale" today I felt the need to watch a better film. I needed to go home on a good note, so I stayed at the cinema to watch "The Book Thief". After all, I have a Cineworld Unlimited Card, so I can watch as many films as I want all month long. "The Book Thief" is based on an international best selling novel and has a cast that includes many leading American, English and German actors, so I had high hopes.

Liesel is a 12-year-old girl whose parents give her up for adoption in 1938. On the journey to her new parents her younger brother dies and is buried in a cemetery at the side of the railway. Liesel sees a book that someone has dropped and takes it with her, even though she can't read. No explanation is given why she can't read at this age. When she arrives at her new home in Malching in Bavaria her new father teaches her how to read, and the first book she reads is the one she has stolen, "The Gravedigger's Manual".

The following year books are burnt in the marketplace that the Nazi regime considers to be immoral or harmful to German society. She secretly steals a book from the flames, "The Invisible Man" by H. G. Wells. This is the second book that she reads.

After this Liesel meets the mayor's wife when delivering laundry that her mother has washed. The mayor's wife allows Liesel to sit and read in her library for a few weeks, until the mayor objects and forbids her to come back. After this Liesel gets into the habit of climbing through the window and stealing books.

The film continues until 1945, with Liesel's thefts taking place against the background of the Second World War. Liesel becomes a good Nazi and joins the Hitler Youth, whereas her father refuses to join the Nazi party and even hides a Jew in his cellar. Strangely, the story is narrated by Death, who revels in the destruction of war.

It's a curious film. I'm not sure what the message is that the writer wants to put across. Maybe it's more obvious in the novel than in the film. It's an interesting picture of a young girl's life in wartime Germany.