A Good Movie That Haunts You When It's Over

Rating: 9/10 (1 April 2009)

I didn't see the end coming at all. To that point, I thought this was a very well done movie, depicting the innocence of an 8 year old boy growing up in the Third Reich who finds himself in the midst of some ugly history-making when his father becomes commandant of a concentration camp. Up to the end I thought this featured great performances, especially from David Thewlis as the cold as ice, duty bound officer who goes about the business of running a concentration camp as if it were like running any business enterprise. The brief scene in which he's sitting at his desk calmly discussing plans for additional crematorium ovens for the camp is especially chilling, because by then, finally, we kind of know what's going to happen. I was also impressed by Vera Farmiga as the angst-ridden mother who wants nothing to do with this gruesome business. Bruno, played by young Asa Butterfield, came across as perhaps a bit too naive, never really figuring out what's going on in the camp even after he begins to be taught by his virulently anti-semitic tutor. His sister Gretel becomes the portrait of an indoctrinated child, who buys the Nazi propaganda fed her by the tutor hook, line and sinker. Until the end, it was pretty good. My biggest criticism of it to that point was that I felt it presented a far too sanitized view of life in the camp, from the glimpses we saw of it. When the final scenes come, though, it ratchets up a couple of notches beyond very good. The ending (which I won't give away) is haunting and chilling and sobering - I can't list all the words that might describe it. All I can say is that in the end a very good movie becomes one that won't get out of your head for quite a while.