We're not supposed to be friends, you and me. We're meant to be enemies. Did you know that?

Rating: 9/10 (13 February 2013)

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is directed by Mark Herman who also adapts the screenplay from the novel written by John Boyne. It stars David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga, Asa Butterfield and Jack Scanlon. Music is by James Horner and cinematography by Benoît Delhomme.
When his family is moved out to the country because his commandant father is transferred, eight year old Bruno (Butterfield) finds himself isolated, bewildered and bored. Forbidden to venture out beyond the rear of the house, Bruno finally has enough and happens upon what he thinks is a farm. Here he meets a strange boy sitting behind the barbed wire fence, wearing pyjamas. A friendship is born, but at what cost?
The Holocaust always has, and always will be tricky material for film makers to bring to the screen. Is it a form of exploitation? Emotional manipulation to grab your cash? Or should films be out there about it to educate and ensure nobody forgets the horrors perpetrated during that sad time in history? What we do know is that there is no unified answer to be found, it's a touchy subject either way, but once in a while there is a Holocaust based film that begs to be seen and appreciated by the film loving populace. Or mainly in this case, as a family viewing.
I haven't read John Boyne's novel, I now wish I had. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas comes at us through the eyes of a child, it's a different approach that works beautifully. The innocence to the horrors being committed out yonder of young Bruno's back yard, hits home like a bolt from the blue. This innocence is reciprocated by the young boy, Shmuel (Scanlon), sitting on the other side of the fence, their innocence, puzzlement and yearning for harmonised exploration is a bastion of what is great in the world. There is no distinguishment between race, creed or colour, they just see another young boy looking back at them through the barbed wire. And crucially the dialogue given them is unfettered, fresh, pure, simple and believable in its youthfulness.
Elsewhere, Bruno's parents are carefully written and performed. Thewlis' father character, the commandant of the camp, is overseer of crimes that still send hate ripples through the world today, but we see him as a human being, a loving father, there's juxtaposition nagging away at the viewer. Farmiga's mother, perhaps guilty of naivety? Yet she's very torn between loyalty to husband and the family life and condemnation of death camp atrocities. The Grandma (Sheila Hancock), too, is not shy in coming forward to oppose such vile "politics", these are potent narrative spurts, do not tar with the same brush springs to mind. The tutorial education (attempted corruption) of youth factor is played, deftly, while nationalist propaganda via Theresienstadt like video film ensures history has been taken notice of.
Invariably there are distressing scenes and passages of dialogue, but since the story is shot through a boy's world view, we don't need to see up close an assault or have the obvious hit us over the head. The off camera sound of a boot connecting with flesh, the hushed voice of a Jewish servant telling of a life he once lived, or a shot of smoke from furnace chimneys, it's all we need to feel sadness and disgust until the finale, where although Herman is careful and astute, he shocks the senses, and then closes with a silent pull away shot that cuts like a knife as we reflect on the story just unfolded before us. Emotional manipulation? Not a bit of it. A brilliant and worthy film, one that parents should seriously consider watching with their kids. 9/10