Most of the time, I agree with Click the City?s (clickthecity.com) resident film critic Philbert Ortiz Dy?s film reviews. He does go beyond plots and star gazing, and occasionally delves into an analysis of the technical aspects of film making. I agreed when he described Bride Wars as ?a genuine must-miss movie? and the two-star (out of five) rating it was given. I was genuinely perturbed, however, when The Reader and Push were given the same rating and there appears to be more criticism than praise for The Reader than for Push.

Mr. Dy describes The Reader as ?strikingly empty? and complains that it ?goes sweet when it could?ve been haunting, romantic when it could be tragic, uplifting where it ought to be painful. At every turn it makes the easier choice, distancing itself from the horrors of its subject, producing a film that?s okay enough to watch, but hardly satisfying in any meaningful way.?

Meanwhile, he claims that Push ?moves at a really brisk pace? and that it ?isn?t really all that bad, and it probably deserves more of a chance than it?s going to get.?

Really? Did Mr. Dy miss the whole point of The Reader? It isn?t about the Holocaust per se, as he suggests. Rather, it is about how time has distanced this generation from the horrors of the Holocaust. The pain and horror suffered by the Jews were not central to the story. It is the culpability of Hanna (played by Kate Winslet), one of the guards who allowed prisoners to die inside a burning church. The conflict is not about the righteousness of Hitler?s beliefs but the inner turmoil within this woman who became a Nazi guard because she needed a job?a woman who took her job so seriously that she refused to unlock the door of the burning church to allow the people inside, all Nazi prisoners, to escape the fire. Her job was to make sure the prisoners didn?t escape so how could she open the door when they could have escaped in the confusion? In her mind, she was merely doing her job.

The Reader is about a simple woman, uneducated and illiterate, who might not have fully comprehended the ramifications of the complex political game that was being played out at the time?a woman so simplistic in the way she thought that she opted to admit principal guilt in the death of the prisoners and spend the rest of her life in prison than face public humiliation by admitting that she could neither read nor write. I thought that was all plain enough especially since it was so well summed up in the end. After Hanna taught herself to read and write while in prison, and had the chance to learn about the Holocaust from a broader and deeper perspective, her feeling of guilt became so overwhelming that she decided to kill herself and leave her worldly possessions to the child, now grown up, who had survived the fire.

The Reader is also about a young man who loved this woman all his life?a young man torn by guilt for loving a woman so evil in the eyes of the world that she allowed all those people to die. It is a dilemma between the purity of love and the morality inflicted by society on every individual.

That is a ?strikingly empty? film ?that?s okay enough to watch, but hardly satisfying in any meaningful way??Are Filipinos really unappreciative of films where there?s scarcity of slapping, screaming, bitching, fistfights and intrigues? Are those the only ways to convey deep emotions?

I am reminded of a scene in the Oscar-winning ?Chariots of Fire? many years ago when Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm) smashes his fist through his straw hat in triumph when his prot?g?, Harold Abrahams, wins the 100 meter dash in the 1924 Olympics. That simple act conveyed such a powerful emotion but some people just cannot appreciate it because triumph, for them, can only be conveyed through noisy cheering, jumping and general melee.

I don?t know what makes a reviewer a bona fide critic but there are some films that have been lambasted by critics in high profile publications that I found very enjoyable. Eagle Eye, for instance, and Mamma Mia! both of which enjoyed commercial success but not critical acclaim. Mr. Dy is described by Click the City as someone who ?spends most of his time watching horrible movies so other people don?t have to? and there is a representation of authority there that implies a huge amount of fairness and objectivity. I mean, how else can anyone claim that people should miss what he tells them to miss and see what he says they should see?

If all film critics were more straightforward, even they won?t dare deny that all movie reviews are subjective and dependent on the perspective and biases of every reviewer. How a person appreciates or misappreciates things?whether a film, a book, a concert or even a scandal in government?is the product of everything that he is. It is the result of how he was raised, how his childhood was spent, his education or the lack of it, his religious views, his values. Everything that we experience in life, we interpret according to the sum of life experiences we have gone through. And I fail to see how a subjective opinion can be labeled as something so authoritative that people should base their decisions on it even if it?s something so mundane as watching a movie.

The author blogs at http://houseonahill.net, http://pinoycook.net and http://www.sassylawyer.com