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'Striped Pajamas' fine filmmaking
Movie Review: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
By Brett Troxler
btroxler@wbrz.com
Web Producer
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PLAY OFFICIAL TRAILER
out of 4 stars.
Perhaps the opening sequence of “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” — with innocent children running and playing on their way home from school, all while Nazi flags wave in Berlin and soldiers lurk and bang on doors in tucked away streets — is meant to be a microcosm of the film to come.
The film, released this November and directed by Mark Herman, follows a German boy who moves with his family to the countryside in the midst of World War II. Shortly after their arrival, the boy, Bruno (played by Asa Butterfield) discovers he can see from his second-story window, off in the distance, a “farm” where people wear funny pajamas.
Little does Bruno realize, in actuality it's a concentration camp, and his father (Daniel Thewlis), a commandant in the German Army, moved the family to their new remote home so he could oversee its operations.
Bruno, having left his friends behind in the city and now stuck in a home that is gated and guarded by soldiers, is starved for companionship. He grows more curious about the camp by the day, wondering if there are children there with whom to play.
Though forbidden, he eventually explores his way there and befriends a Jewish boy, Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), who is being held inside the giant fences of the camp. Two boys of 8, having met at any other time and any other place, could have become lifelong friends, out in the open, for decades to come.
Instead, they are forced to meet in secret, with Bruno sneaking out and traversing the forest to get to Shmuel, so that for a few minutes a day they can communicate through electrified barbwire, play games and share food. Though they catch glimpses of the hate of war, they never quite understand the utterly devastating consequences to which a friendship such as theirs could lead.
From the director's chair, Herman effectively captures this snapshot of the life of one German family during the worst of times, where forces pull at them from all sides and the blanket of adolescent innocence is removed.
While the father is charged by his loyalty to the fatherland, a disapproving mother voices her dissenting opinions, and the wife (Vera Farmiga) becomes increasingly disenfranchised by the values and subsequent atrocities of the war — and her family's proximity to the horrors of the Holocaust.
Based on a novel by John Boyne, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” is an affecting and powerful film, rich with cinematography and strong performances. It is one of the better examples of fine filmmaking you'll find in 2008, though its heartrending sequences may be hard to stomach, and its final shot — despite fading out before the credits — won't soon leave you.
