The Holocaust through an eight year old's eyes

Rating: 8/10 (28 November 2010)

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is based off the novel of the same name by author John Boyne. Right of the bat, it's uniqueness stems from how the film's perspective is set. Rather than having the story be centered around adults in the Concentration Camp, or even Nazi officers, it's set through the eyes of a perky eight year old with an open mind and a curious sense. Having never read the book, I can't say if it follows the story pin-point detail, but it sure seemed like director Mark Herman knew what he was doing from the start of production.
The Holocaust is a tender time, and I'm not always in the mood to watch a film about it. I did see the 2004 documentary about a school in Tennessee, Paper Clips, but never saw the 1993 Schindler's List. Because The Holocaust is a tender historical event, I don't always want to watch something about it and sometimes avoid films that's plot is centered around it since I'm easily emotional. Though whenever I watch a film about The Holocaust I usually wind up enjoying it, but better safe than sorry.
The plot: Bruno (Butterfield) is an eight year old boy forced to move from Berlin to the countryside with his mom Elsa (Farmiga), SS officer father Ralf (Thewlis), and his twelve year old sibling Gretel (Beattie). While getting acquainted with the changes, Bruno finds a Jewish boy of the same age on the opposite side of a barbed wire fence. The boy's name is Shmuel (Scanlon) and he opens up to Bruno, telling him that him and his family are forced to wear "striped pajamas" because him and his family are Jewish. Bruno of course has no clue what all of this means, but winds up becoming close with Shmuel and ignoring his parents dislike of Jews.
The film is deep in some scenes, but one thing that let me down was that Bruno and Shmuel don't have many dialog scenes together as I would've thought. They have quite a few, but not as many as one would hope. Striped Pajamas however changes around the middle of the film to focusing more on the parents than the boy. Very cool set up here that we aren't faced with so much.
How sad the film will make you depends on the kind of person you are. I've been known to get extremely emotional to films, but this one didn't bother me so much because I predicted the ending about halfway through. It's still definitely an informative movie and a very interesting, unique look on The Holocaust itself. After all this time I put off the movie, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas proves to be more than meets the eye and the title. Whats one supposed to think when they read the title The Boy in the Striped Pajamas? A five year old kid's trip to K-Mart? Starring: Asa Butterfield, Vera Farmiga, David Thewlis, Jack Scanlon, David Hayman, and Rupert Friend. Directed by: Mark Herman.