Karma at its best

Rating: Null/10 (17 March 2016)

Recently flicking through the TV channels... Oh "The boy in the striped Pyjamas" I remembered this was a movie I did like! So I watched almost from the beginning as it had already started. This is a very sad film, and the saddest thing about it...NO spoiler here, is that I have seen it before and could not remember much about its details, only that it made me remember that it was a very good movie to my liking. And this is sad indeed, I have some difficulty to accept that it was almost new to me again, and how could that be, when some of the scenes are so powerful and well acted. Today I read a few comments here on IMDb and it's quite interesting how they express almost extremes opinions. One that seems to pop up a lot is the choice of language. Some feels that it should have been expressed in German or with some sort of Germanic accent or words perhaps. I disagree with this. Recently I saw the "Book Thieve" and I found so inappropriate the use of a few German words here and there even if I wasn't too bother by the "would be" German accent at the hand of English speaking actors. I personally feel that the transfer to a fully educated English dialog reflected better than otherwise the depth of the situation. After all if it had been a book wouldn't it be in pure English? Reason for this choice are said to be because it is a British film, this alone is a good reason as the Irish writing is the original therefore its thoughts are expressed correctly and not translated to its nearest meaning. Then if it is presented to an English speaking audience it's definitely a good choice. I do understand though that each country has its personal characters, and language with its own peculiarities of which cultural influence is one of them, thus may have a different flavour written in another language, but this is only of value when one is familiar with these differences, I don't believe the majority of the viewers would. Other comments do speak of improbability of certain situations in the plot... I don't believe this work claims to be a factual account of what went on during these terrible times. But it certainly is inspired by the horror of it. And it brings it through the eyes of the age of innocence in a very touching way. Innocence from those who could not know better because of their young age, but also innocence from those who were conned in believing they were doing a humanitarian salvage. In France I have been raised with negative feeling towards the Jewish presence and I did not need this film to tell me what Jews were, I believe most of Europe was also holding the same perception. Of course, to hold such thoughts is still a long way from acting on it as the SS did, but it certainly part of it. But let's not forget that human behaviour has not changed all that much. We're still not very comfortable with anything not familiar or posing a challenge. Race is still a problem, Sport, nationality, status etc. So anything that may be identified as a threat, a disadvantage or a suspicion may give rise to undesirable thoughts or actions. Some suggest we should read other work about the Holocaust instead of "melting" over this story... I would say, some don't even believe or want to believe that such event happened. And here the brutality of these days I believe is factual, the unbelievable outcome of these event is also well documented and most reasonable people would accept it happened. The discordance between the German is also to be believed. I think each of them dealt with what happened then in their own way, mostly faced with a very difficult and dangerous "hot potato" But some were brave enough and some lost their life to keep to their belief. I saw all this in this film...Will I remember it next time?