The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Plot synopsis:
SS officer Ralf (David Thewlis) and his wife Elsa (Vera Farmiga) have a twelve-year-old daughter, Gretel (Amber Beattie), and an eight-year-old son, Bruno (Asa Butterfield). The well-to-do family must move to the "countryside" when the father is promoted (to Obersturmbannführer). Unknown to Bruno, the new house is near a Nazi concentration camp, and Ralf is the new commandant. Bruno initially dislikes the new house as he always has to stay in the house or the garden; also there are no other children to play with, apart from his sister. From his bedroom window, Bruno spots a barbed wire fence with people in "striped pyjamas" behind it. Though he thinks it is a farm, it is the camp with Jewish people in their camp clothing. Bruno is forbidden to go there, because according to Ralf, "they're not really people"; it is agreed that at least they are a bit weird, as demonstrated by their clothing.Bruno goes there anyway, secretly, and becomes friends with a Jewish boy, named Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), whom he meets at the fence, and who is the same age. Shmuel tells Bruno that he is a Jew and that the Jewish people have been imprisoned here by soldiers, who also took their clothes and gave them the striped camp clothing, and that he is hungry. Bruno is confused and starts having doubts about his father being a good person. Later, he is relieved after seeing a propaganda film about the camp (that is a parody of Theresienstadt). Bruno often returns to the fence. He brings Shmuel food and plays draughts (checkers) with him through the fence.An elderly Jewish man named Pavel (David Hayman) is a servant in the family home; he is treated rudely by Ralf's adjutant, Obersturmführer Kotler (Rupert Friend). Formerly a doctor, Pavel mends Bruno's cuts when he falls off his homemade tire swing.Ralf hires Herr Liszt (Jim Norton) to tutor Gretel and Bruno, although in reality he is brainwashing them with anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda. Gretel is very responsive to this and becomes an even more fanatical Nazi than she already was, also because she likes Kotler. However, Bruno is bored and also confused, since Shmuel and Pavel are friendly.In the meantime, Elsa notices a strange smell that she keeps noticing outside their house just as Lieutenant Kotler walks past. Kotler, thinking Elsa knows what really goes on in the camp, says to her "They smell even worse when they burn," Elsa, who thought that the camp was a labour camp and not a death camp, is shocked and quarrels with Ralf about it, and ultimately breaks down.Kotler is blamed by Ralf and Ralf's visiting father (who is also a firm Nazi) that he failed to report that his father emigrated to Switzerland some time ago, as opposed to contributing to the "national revival". Frustrated, Kotler responds to a small accident by Pavel of spilling some wine by beating him up severely; Pavel is not seen in the house any more. Later in the film, Maria, the maid, is shown cleaning up blood from where Pavel was beaten up.Shmuel appears in the house as a new servant and, in his joy, Bruno gives him a cake to eat. However, Kotler starts yelling at Shmuel for speaking with Bruno and stealing food. Shmuel tells the officer that Bruno is his friend and that he gave him the cake. Frightened, Bruno denies, adding that he does not know Shmuel. The soldier tells Shmuel that they will later have "a little chat about what happens with rats who steal". Shmuel is not seen in the house anymore, and at first not at the fence either. Finally, Shmuel is at the fence again, with an injured right eye. Bruno apologizes. Shmuel soon forgives Bruno and they become friends again. Kotler is later sent to the front for not advising his superiors of his father's opposition to the Nazi regime.Elsa decides to move away with the children; Ralf agrees, and tells Bruno that Elsa does not feel that the area is a good place for children to grow up. Bruno does not want to leave anymore, because of his friend Shmuel.Shmuel tells Bruno that his father is missing. Bruno gives him the bad news that he will be moving away for good the next day after lunch. Wanting to make up for letting Shmuel down and unaware that his father has likely been murdered, Bruno agrees to help Shmuel to find his father, and returns the next day with a shovel to dig a hole under the fence to get into the camp, while Shmuel will bring an extra set of camp clothing; Shmuel's suggestion that he could leave the camp through the hole is rejected by Bruno, who focuses on the target of finding the father.Bruno changes his clothes and wiggles under the fence, and is now in the camp with Shmuel. Bruno comes to realize that the camp is completely the opposite of what he saw in the propaganda film and wants to return, but Shmuel encourages him to continue helping to find his father. While they look in Shmuel's hut a group of guards and Kapos arrive and march all those inside (including Bruno and Shmuel) to a low concrete building. The men and boys are made to undress, supposedly for a shower, packed together into a gas chamber, and killed.In the meantime, Elsa warns Ralf (who is in a meeting about increasing the capacity of the crematorium) that Bruno is missing. With Gretel, they run to the camp and try to find him. They find Bruno's clothes next to the hole under the fence. Ralf runs throughout the camp and discovers an empty hut, and, reaching the gas chamber, concludes that Bruno has been brought to the gas chamber with a group of Jews. Pavel is also seen undressing near the boys and he looks at them and then turns away. When Ralf arrives, the boys are already dead and he is devastated. Upon hearing Ralf's cry of "Bruno!" Elsa and Gretel realise what has happened and are equally devastated. A last shot showing the undressing room with many camp uniforms reminds the viewer that the tragedy is not just Bruno, Shmuel and Pavel's deaths, but that of many other Jewish people during the holocaust of World War II.

Tags: historical, sentimental

Review:
So I watched The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas today and this movie seriously is one of the saddest films I have ever seen, but I felt it was very maturely handled.
The actors are great and the story is very touching, to watch these two boys from two completely different worlds who come together just to have fun, be boys, not because of the difference of their background.Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence.
The subtlety of the looks passing between the actors and a finale that ensured silence until the final credit rolled, makes this one of the best films i've seen in a long time.This is the first review I have never written and i cannot think of a better way to have opened my account..
Now Mark Herman's "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas", itself based on John Boyne's novel, is fit to mentioned alongside these two great films.I was initially doubtful at the premise of this film since my knowledge of Holocaust history suggested that 8 year old boys would have been sent straight to the gas chambers on arrival rather than set to work in a camp (obviously I am happy to be set straight on this point if I am wrong).
And having seen the film, I also doubt that the boy in the camp (Shmuel, well played by Jack Scanlon) would be able to sit at the camp fence undetected long enough to meet and talk to Bruno, the camp Commandant's son (an astonishingly assured performance by newcomer Asa Butterfield).There has also been some criticism of the fact that all the actors speak in Received Pronounciation English accents (even American actress Vera Farmiga, whose English accent is completely faultless).
When it finished, I sat in my seat stunned (I had the same reaction after watching "Disaster Movie" last week, but most definitely not for the same reason, I assure you).The Holocaust as seen through the prism of 8 year old German boy is a novel approach and although we all know what is happening at the camp nearby, at the beginning, he does not.
None of them are one dimensional wholly evil characters but nor are they wholly good either (not even Bruno who tells lies on several occasions, one occasion which results in brutal punishment for one of the prisoners as a consequence).With good performances from Asa Butterfield as Bruno, Amber Beattie as his sister, David Thewlis as his father, Vera Farmiga as his mother and Jack Scanlon as Shmuel, this may not be the first film about the loss of childhood innocence in the Holocaust (Roberto Benigni beat Herman to it with "Life is Beautiful" and whilst Benigni's film has a powerful end of its own, even that does not compare to the powerful shattering ending which this film possesses) but it is the best and most effective to date.With restrained direction by Mark Herman and a similarly restrained score from James Horner, if this film does not win the hat full of Oscars next year that it surely deserves, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will have shown itself to be completely irrelevant..
Watching this movie I kept being drawn back to Primo Levi's book "If This is Man" the story of his time as a prisoner suffering from this evil.The great success of the film is its simplicity, it does not seek to over analyse but simply allows the development of the characters to tell the story.One of the contributers spoke of how he was in screen 9 (if I remember correctly) in Cineworld Dublin - I was in Screen 11 and I can had the same experience, the film ended and no one moved, all were in a state of shock, no, sorrow.
I will try and not spoil it and keep the review very simple and straight forward.The film is mainly shot through the eyes of Bruno played by Asa Butterfield growing up in war time Germany during the holocaust.
I will end it there as I don't wish to spoil the rest of the film.Putting to one side the fact that everyone has a flawless English accent (which does make it difficult to hate them at first), the cinematics, sound, editing and above all acting are a credit to the British film industry.Asa Butterfield is fine young actor and I'm sure will be destined for even greater things in the future.As I mentioned above, I won't give anything away, but I will say that this is the first time I have been to the Cinema and everyone sat quiet right up until the end of the credits.Please, please see this film.
You don't often sit in a BAFTA screening and hear weeping behind you but even the most hardened cineaste would be moved by this look at the holocaust through an Aryan child's eyes.It is beautifully scripted, acted and shot too - with none of the anachronisms of taste and language that bedevil historically-set films such as The Duchess.A small, British movie with an unusual take on a ghastly and well-worn subject.PS - for parents: It's a 12A in Britain and I wouldn't take a child under about eleven.
The picture begins on the quiet introspective look at young Bruno ( Butterfield )who lives happily with his family, a sweet mother (Vera Farmiga, elder sister and father (David Thewlis), a stiff Nazi commandant.
The title itself is an indication that this movie is going to depict the horrors of World War II through the innocent eyes of a little boy, an approach that I already despised in the similarly out of place "Life Is Beautiful".
Personally, I don't believe in the natural goodness of children or in their naive innocence when it comes to befriending others, but that's not even the main problem I have with this movie.From the beginning, "The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas" is only looking for ways to dramatize the story.
It feels like an exploitation of real life tragedies for the purpose of a cheap shock moment, and that's just tasteless.Good performances by the child actors and Vera Farmiga couldn't save this movie.
I have read and seen a lot about the Holocaust, and although I know that a story like that could not have happened in reality (the single line fence, where two kids could have met unobserved; the naivety and ignorance of an 8-year old boy), I was very moved and found the film extremely well done.
Her performance was way over the top at most times.This movie felt like it was just going for the Oscar's by being politically correct in every sense, but there is nothing that would really grab and twist your mind to think of the holocaust any differently than we are used to.
The father justified his work with the rationalization heard over history with genocide that "they aren't really people".I will have to say that given the usual mindless entertainment on the silver screen this movie will stay with you.The main theme of the movie is how 2 innocent 8 year old boys are affected by evil, and man's inhumanity to man.I had heard some detractors say that all of the "Germans" are speaking with English accents, including the American actress Vera Farmiga (I suppose to stay consistent with the other British actors) - their contention that somehow this detracts from the authenticity.
Even the young lieutenant is victimized for his father's failure to support the Party.Where the film fails is in establishing any kind of convincing relationship between Bruno and Shmuel, the little Jewish boy he befriends behind the wire, which would make the ending devastating or even poignant rather than simply contrived.
And like the Dreamfactory's animated features, The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas, which is based on a children's book, is a morality tale and a film which both kids and adults can enjoy.The film tells the story of two eight-year-old boys who are at either side of Auschwitz's fence.
After all, the full title of the book it is based on is The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas: A Fable, and so the moral message takes precedence over realism.In depicting the Holocaust through the eyes of innocent children, who are seen as untainted by the evil that apparently lurks in all grown men, John Boyne, the author of the book, and Mark Herman, the film's director, can avoid addressing the historical as well as moral complexity of the Holocaust.
In conceiving of the Holocaust as a historical horror story that keeps being repeated in different forms, we lose sight of the particularities of each of those events and this reduces our ability to properly understand any of them.Many well-intentioned initiatives to maintain the memory of the Holocaust end up relativising it and belittling the experiences of those who were persecuted, enslaved, gassed to death or forced to flee their home countries under the threat of extermination in Nazi concentration camps.Consider the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust in Britain for example.
It took every fibre of my being when the credits rolled to not cry with the rest of the cinema goers, the movie jolted throughout me as I was caught so far from the ending.Truly, a film all should watch but do not expect to come away feeling good.The story is set away from the typical line in a Nazi ear movie, it shows the pure innocence of a child being brutally destroyed, the sheer naievty of the boy in the whole situation is shocking and only serves to devastate harder and further the more we move into the movie.I can't recommend this movie enough..
Bruno lives a conflict about the Jews while having classes with his tutor and at home with the German officers; when Shmuel's father disappears in the camp, Bruno digs a hole and wears pyjamas to help his friend to find his father with tragic consequences.Yesterday I watched the heartbreaking "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" and I am still moved with this touching and tragic tale of two pure boys and their sight of war and holocaust through their innocent eyes.
The Edge-4 pretty much said it all in his review here: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a well-crafted, unsentimental take on the Holocaust as seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old German boy, who happens to be the son of a newly installed concentration camp commander.
Based on a novel (called a "fable") geared to young adults by Irish author John Boyne, the narrative is told from the point of view of eight-year old Bruno, the son of prominent Nazi officer Ralf (David Thewlis).The film's joyous opening sequence gives no hint of the dark night to follow.
Bored and without playmates, Bruno disregards the many warnings from his mother and adventurously explores the forbidden territory beyond the wall.When he discovers an emaciated young boy his own age Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) sitting next to a barbed-wired fence wearing what he mistakenly identifies as striped pajamas, Bruno only sees the opportunity for a new friend.
The Lieutenant seems to be a stereotype until the dinner scene, when suddenly even he becomes a real human being.Nearly all the horrific events are implied and off-screen, but the constant understated references are very clever: the black clouds blowing over the garden, and the chillingly brilliant scene with Gretel's dolls stored in the cellar, so innocent in itself but so evocative of what was really happening.I would not class this as a children's film, but the way it is done from Bruno and Shmuel's perspective means that (older) children can relate to the characters.
"The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," a historical fiction film gives the perspective of an 8-year-old German boy whose father is in charge of running a death camp, unaware of what's going on at all.
"if the people who performed genocide against the Jewish people could have come by a time machine and had watched this movie and had seen the ending,would the past have been the same.some would have said just to be more careful to bruno's father sure;but i guess majority of them would have regret what they did.İ still believe in humanity ,though it is a naive thought these days.The movie is well directed,well acted .thanks to the producers...
So, in boredom and confusion he wonders what is going on at OutWith and why people are always dressed in striped pajamas there.It takes a great writer to tell a story about such evil especially through the eyes of a child and Mark Herman's screenplay of the novel by John Boyne is a fantastic adaptation.The dialogue is delightful and only enhanced by some stunning acting.
It is not like those movies about 2 WW that try to show you the horrors of the war it is a simple story about two young boys 8 years old, that see the devastating effects of the war in a different way.
Shock numbed your senses.In this movie, the film makers take us into a child's world and if you were 8 years old from either side of the fence, what did you think, what you saw, what you felt, what you believed!
When you see the the world through the eyes of children, all your senses are enhanced, innocence is magnified, beauty crystallized.Two kids in this movie, a son of a Nazi General, Bruno, and a Jewish kid in Concentration camp, Schmoel, they form a friendship but are separated by an electric fence, across which they sit and chat and even laugh and play games, and try to make sense of the world they live in and try to interpret events and actions, unable to comprehend the underlying evil.
Stark in its message and touching in its emotional core, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a powerful, albeit slightly unfocused criticism of one of the cruellest acts in the recent history of man; and it does so through the eyes of an eight year old boy.This boy isn't the one mentioned in the title however, that would be an imprisoned Jew, living in a labour camp not far from our main character's new home.
Bruno (Asa Butterfield), a boy of eight and son of an important Nazi soldier, has recently left his home in Berlin to live with his father, sister and mother in their new home which incidentally is near a concentration camp.
Bruno and Shmuel may never have any real time to bond and become close friends, but through their mutual isolation they find solace in each other, regardless of the electric fencing between them and whatever race of people they may be descendant from.Both child actors Butterfield and Scanlon do very well in their positions, and although they suffer from a distinct lack of true connection to the historical setting in which they find themselves, their inherent sense of ignorance brings the film a much needed air of innocence.
The remainder of the cast hold their own just as well, with Vera Farmiga and David Thewlis providing some domestic dynamism as Bruno's mother and father adequately with enough resonance to further their son's personal story.In the end however, it was indeed the film's final ten minutes which won me over.
With "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas", director Mark Herman has adapted John Boyne's highly acclaimed novel which sees a small part of this greatest of crimes through the eyes of an innocent and oblivious child.Bruno, the central character, is an eight year old who moves with his family to their new home in the country.
Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is the lonely son of the camps Commander.The picture is very approachable, which is weird to say about a film dealing with the Nazi concentration camps, but I feel like it works in its favor.
Exploring the horrors of the darkest period in human history & telling the tale from the point of view of an eight year old boy, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a strong, heartfelt story of a forbidden friendship formed between a German boy of a Nazi official & a Jewish boy in an extermination camp and it's the evolution of their friendship that is the soul of this film.
At his new home the boy is bored without friends to play with, but meets a young boy on the other side of a fence who is sitting around in his pyjamas; over time they become good friends.The film is aimed at the family audience; parents with older children who can deal with the subject matter but perhaps are coming to it for the first time.
He meets a Jewish boy his age and begins a friendship which involves playing games through the electric fence that separates them, bringing him food, and asking him questions about the camp.This is different from most Holocaust films because it is seen through the eyes of the young boy, Bruno.
Thus, one must not expect this movie to be heavy on historical detail; instead, it uses the Holocaust mainly as a convenient backdrop to convey the moral of the story, that we are all human and deserve to be treated as such.The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is different from most other Holocaust films because it is viewed through the eyes of a child and effectively utilizes this perspective to demonstrate its purpose.
This film tells us the story of two children on both sides of the Holocaust.Bruno is the 8 year old son of the Commander of the Auschwitz Death Camp when it is still in development.
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.