A young German boy's Nazi experience during the war.

Rating: Null/10 (3 June 2009)

Unplanned but quite coincidentally I have seen three fine but different movies with a Nazi German theme the past couple of weeks. "Valkyrie" is about one of the failed attempts to assassinate Hitler, "The Reader" is about a former German SS guard, a lady being tried post-war for crimes. And now this one, "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas."
Unlike "The Reader" where characters spoke in English but with a German accent, or "Valkyrie" where the characters initially spoke German then faded to English, this one makes no pretenses. The cast is heavily British and they simply speak in a straightforward British accent. This threw me a little at the beginning, but then went with it with no problem.
At the center of it all is young Asa Butterfield playing 8-year-old Bruno. They live in a usual neighborhood but his dad, a German officer, gets transferred. His new job is as the head of one of the concentration camps, one where Jews are killed then incinerated.
Young Bruno doesn't understand any of this, and when he sees people in the distance, looking from his second-story bedroom window, thinks they are farmers. Especially because one of those "farmers" works at their home, often peeling potatoes. When young Bruno falls and skins his knee the prisoner bandages him up, and tells Bruno that he is a doctor, which he was.
Eventually young Bruno explores, and comes upon the barbed wire fence enclosing the compound. He sees a small boy, also 8, in a secluded corner basically hiding out, but when the whistle blows takes his wheelbarrow and goes to meet the others. The boy wears a prison uniform, and that is what Bruno takes for "Striped Pajamas." Good movie, of a very difficult subject. The message is rather surprising.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW: While Bruno is simply becoming friends with the imprisoned boy, and still not understanding the gravity of the situation, nor his father's job, he catches a glimpse of a propaganda film being shown to officers in his house. It was made at that very camp, and depicts the prisoners living well and having a somewhat enjoyable time. So Bruno decides he will join them and be able to play with his new friend. He digs under the fence, puts on a prisoner uniform and hat, and goes with the boy. As fate would have it, that was the day the boy and others in his dormitory were to be marched to the chamber, gassed, and then incinerated, to make room for new prisoners. Dad was too late, his own son died along with the prisoners. You reap what you sow.