one of the best holocaust movies

Rating: 9/10 (1 March 2010)

to start with this movie is a out and out holocaust movie...it shows all the things the Jews had to go through during the holocaust....but the perspective is very different...the whole holocaust is shown through the eyes of a 8 year old kid,Bruno...who is innocent and is completely unaware of the whole situation in Germany...and to complicate things the father of this kid is a highly placed Nazi officer...
at the start of the movie the characters are introduced in Berlin,they are shown as a happy and self sufficient family..Bruno has friends in the locality and is very happy with his life...he also has a 12 year old sister and a very understanding and compassionate mother..his father is a very dutiful officer but is also an understanding but stern parent...soon after wards their father breaks to them the news that they must shift to another place...Bruno is naturally very upset..now the family is shown to have shifted to their new house...there is a concentration camp nearly a mile away from their house..the boy develops curiosity regarding the concentration camp and their parents somehow manages to dodge his questions..their parents even keeps a tutor,who teaches the kids history in which Bruno is the least interested in,the only thing he is interested in is adventure...his sister however starts loving the subjects and gets addicted to the Nazi mentality and develops anti Jew sentiments...Bruno soon befriends a Jewish boy of the same age who is equally innocent..and they play along the barbed wires of the camp...this friend is a friend which he never had in his life...the confusion in his mind about the teachings of his teacher,IE-all Jews are bad,and they are bad for the country... and its vast difference with reality is brilliantly shown and i think is one of the strongest points in the movie....generalization is in fact an offense!! i wont divulge more facts from the plot of the movie..but i must tell u the climax is really hard hitting!!
i have deliberately not compared this movie with other renowned holocaust movies like Schlinder's list and the pianist..because this movie is really one of its kind..and the movie did not have any scope for powerful performances...all the performances were given in perfect doses..