The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Rating: 6/10 (19 May 2009)

From director Mark Herman (Brassed Off, Little Voice), I had heard a few bits and pieces about this film, and it sounded like something I might like. Set in World War II, the story sees eight-year-old Bruno (Asa Butterfield) moving house with sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) and Mother (Vera Farmiga), because of his Nazi-officer Father (Harry Potter's David Thewlis) being promoted. They have relocated to the countryside of Germany, where the Father, unknown to Bruno, is the commanding officer of a near prison camp. A mysterious man dressed in what seem to be striped pyjamas, named Pavel (David Hayman), who is actually a Jewish prisoner (and ex-doctor), talks to Bruno a little. But Bruno is curious of the "farm" he can see from his window, and disobeying his Mother, he explores what unknown to him is a concentration camp, and he forms a friendship with eight-year-old Schultz (Béla Fesztbaum), also dressed in striped pyjamas, like many others behind the electrified bard-wire fence. Both being young and naive, they don't realise the reality of the situation, with Shmultz and many others in the camp being Jewish and seen by the Nazis as an enemy. In the end, Bruno dresses in some pyjamas, and he and Schultz attempt to find his missing Father, and when Bruno's family realise where he may have gone to, by the time they get there, he, Scmultz and many other Jews have been exterminated. Also starring Richard Johnson as Grandpa, Sheila Hancock as Grandma, Rupert Friend as Lieutenant Kotler and Jim Norton as Herr Liszt. It is heartbreaking to see the children befriending each other without knowing the truth about what is going on, and you really realise the tragedy and cruelty of events that occurred back then. Good!