PG-13 | Rottentomatoes.com Rating: 63% | 2008 |
(Thematic elements, including) | Picky Flicks Quote: "Poignant and devastatingly sad." -Susan Granger, SSG Syndicate | RUNTIME: 1 hr. 34 mins. |
Visit:www.screenit.com for complete details | Movie Mood:  Pensive |
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas sounds innocent enough, even a little whimsical or fanciful, perhaps. But I’d be cruel to mislead you by implying that the title is entirely representative of the movie’s content. This is a Holocaust movie. And as such, it is not an upper. In fact, although the vast majority of the movie keeps its spirits bouyant since its point of view is that of an eight-year-old, it is the shocking, devastating climax that will stay with you long after the credits roll.
Young Bruno lives a charmed life. His father is an important military figure in the Nazi regime, and Bruno and his sister, Gretel, carry on an idyllic, sheltered existence within the confines of their mansion in Berlin, almost entirely unaware of the turmoil of the war and their father’s participation in and promotion of human suffering. Of course, as the Father points out, the Jews aren’t really humans at all, now are they?
Bruno’s first small dose of reality comes when his father is “promoted” and the family moves to the countryside, to another mansion. But this one is dark and dreary, with bars and gates and guards everywhere. Bruno knows nothing about what his father actually does, only that he is a soldier and thus respectable and worthy of admiration. Bruno’s gentle, equally spoiled mother, Elsa, perpetuates this belief, while twelve-year-old Gretel quickly becomes enamored with a young (as in only twice her age or so; yuck), handsome lieutenant. Everyone’s adjusting well, except Bruno, who has no playmates and is bored.
He’s not even allowed free rein of the property once he points out a “farm” he can see from his bedroom window to his mother. The funny thing is that the farmers and even their children all wear odd, striped pajamas. Elsa is dismayed (she immediately marches into her husband’s study and hisses, “Ralf, you promised it was miles away!”), and from that moment on, Bruno is forbidden playing in the back garden.
Of course, the back garden is suddenly the only desirable place to be. And when he’s granted permission to be back there for a moment so that he can help Pavel, an emaciated, striped-pajama clad “farmer,” pick out a tire for his new swing, Bruno notices a window low enough to reach and just the right size for an eight-year-old boy to shimmy through.
And shimmy he does, first chance he gets. Then, he goes tripping along merrily through the woods, just happy to be free to do as he likes, until, lo and behold, he stumbles upon a sad, shorn little boy just his age, hunkered down near the electrical, barbed wire of the “farm.” He’s so thin, his striped pajamas are wearing him. Bruno immediately strikes up a conversation, then recoils when he discovers the boy’s name is Shmuel. “Shmuel?” he says. “Nobody is named Shmuel. I’ve never heard that name before.” To which Shmuel calmly replies, “I’ve never heard of anyone named Bruno before.”
This small exchange exemplifies just how disparate these boys’ lives are and were even before Shmuel's world became the concentration camp. But the shared bonds of their loneliness draw them together (not to mention their identically stuffy British accents…just kidding, sort of; I did find the movie's perfectly crisp British phrasings a bit perplexing, though, since no one in the story is actually a Brit). Soon, Bruno is sneaking away whenever he can and bringing Shmuel little snacks, which the undernourished boy instantly crams in his mouth (Bruno is not so devoted as to resist eating the entire chocolate bar he’s brought for his new friend when Shmuel is slow to appear one day).
There are aspects of the story that are a bit hard to swallow, namely that an eight-year-old boy in a guarded compound could slip away so easily and be so little missed. But there’s nothing contrived about the horror in his mother’s eyes when she accidentally stumbles upon the truth behind the “ghastly” smells that are belched, along with plumes of inky black smoke, from the chimneys of the “farm." Elsa's head has been unwillingly yanked from the sand, and she can no longer simply run errands and play house like everything is fine. She understands nows that she has married a monster and that the nature of the work being done at the “work camp” is of the deadliest variety.
Bruno does not understand this both because he is too young and also because he is too self-centered. Despite his desire to be Shmuel's chum, Bruno is quick to protect his own hide, at one point lying to save himself a tongue-lashing, which then morphs into a brutal beating for Shmuel. The film’s portrayal of the subtle influences of an environment of deceit, hatred, and self-interest on the psyche of an otherwise “innocent” boy is one of its most profound and insightful statements. Everything about the Holocaust makes sin nature hard to deny, but it is never more evident than when a child is capable of cruelty without even understanding precisely why.
The performances in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas are solid all around, with Bruno and Shmuel balancing age-appropriate while still poised performances. Vera Farmiga as Elsa is also quite good, although, after having heard raves about her performances in other movies, I felt a bit cheated since she’s given relatively little to do here.
Again, please do not watch Striped Pajamas with an expectation of a happy ending, or you will be sorely disappointed and maybe even a bit disillusioned. Watch it for a bit of a twist on a familiar subject and a reminder of where, but for the grace of God, we all could still be, and you will receive a sobering, yet graceful lesson in consequences.
Until next Wednesday, stay picky! Your mind will thank you later.
Young Bruno lives a charmed life. His father is an important military figure in the Nazi regime, and Bruno and his sister, Gretel, carry on an idyllic, sheltered existence within the confines of their mansion in Berlin, almost entirely unaware of the turmoil of the war and their father’s participation in and promotion of human suffering. Of course, as the Father points out, the Jews aren’t really humans at all, now are they?
Bruno’s first small dose of reality comes when his father is “promoted” and the family moves to the countryside, to another mansion. But this one is dark and dreary, with bars and gates and guards everywhere. Bruno knows nothing about what his father actually does, only that he is a soldier and thus respectable and worthy of admiration. Bruno’s gentle, equally spoiled mother, Elsa, perpetuates this belief, while twelve-year-old Gretel quickly becomes enamored with a young (as in only twice her age or so; yuck), handsome lieutenant. Everyone’s adjusting well, except Bruno, who has no playmates and is bored.
He’s not even allowed free rein of the property once he points out a “farm” he can see from his bedroom window to his mother. The funny thing is that the farmers and even their children all wear odd, striped pajamas. Elsa is dismayed (she immediately marches into her husband’s study and hisses, “Ralf, you promised it was miles away!”), and from that moment on, Bruno is forbidden playing in the back garden.
Of course, the back garden is suddenly the only desirable place to be. And when he’s granted permission to be back there for a moment so that he can help Pavel, an emaciated, striped-pajama clad “farmer,” pick out a tire for his new swing, Bruno notices a window low enough to reach and just the right size for an eight-year-old boy to shimmy through.
And shimmy he does, first chance he gets. Then, he goes tripping along merrily through the woods, just happy to be free to do as he likes, until, lo and behold, he stumbles upon a sad, shorn little boy just his age, hunkered down near the electrical, barbed wire of the “farm.” He’s so thin, his striped pajamas are wearing him. Bruno immediately strikes up a conversation, then recoils when he discovers the boy’s name is Shmuel. “Shmuel?” he says. “Nobody is named Shmuel. I’ve never heard that name before.” To which Shmuel calmly replies, “I’ve never heard of anyone named Bruno before.”
This small exchange exemplifies just how disparate these boys’ lives are and were even before Shmuel's world became the concentration camp. But the shared bonds of their loneliness draw them together (not to mention their identically stuffy British accents…just kidding, sort of; I did find the movie's perfectly crisp British phrasings a bit perplexing, though, since no one in the story is actually a Brit). Soon, Bruno is sneaking away whenever he can and bringing Shmuel little snacks, which the undernourished boy instantly crams in his mouth (Bruno is not so devoted as to resist eating the entire chocolate bar he’s brought for his new friend when Shmuel is slow to appear one day).
There are aspects of the story that are a bit hard to swallow, namely that an eight-year-old boy in a guarded compound could slip away so easily and be so little missed. But there’s nothing contrived about the horror in his mother’s eyes when she accidentally stumbles upon the truth behind the “ghastly” smells that are belched, along with plumes of inky black smoke, from the chimneys of the “farm." Elsa's head has been unwillingly yanked from the sand, and she can no longer simply run errands and play house like everything is fine. She understands nows that she has married a monster and that the nature of the work being done at the “work camp” is of the deadliest variety.
Bruno does not understand this both because he is too young and also because he is too self-centered. Despite his desire to be Shmuel's chum, Bruno is quick to protect his own hide, at one point lying to save himself a tongue-lashing, which then morphs into a brutal beating for Shmuel. The film’s portrayal of the subtle influences of an environment of deceit, hatred, and self-interest on the psyche of an otherwise “innocent” boy is one of its most profound and insightful statements. Everything about the Holocaust makes sin nature hard to deny, but it is never more evident than when a child is capable of cruelty without even understanding precisely why.
The performances in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas are solid all around, with Bruno and Shmuel balancing age-appropriate while still poised performances. Vera Farmiga as Elsa is also quite good, although, after having heard raves about her performances in other movies, I felt a bit cheated since she’s given relatively little to do here.
Again, please do not watch Striped Pajamas with an expectation of a happy ending, or you will be sorely disappointed and maybe even a bit disillusioned. Watch it for a bit of a twist on a familiar subject and a reminder of where, but for the grace of God, we all could still be, and you will receive a sobering, yet graceful lesson in consequences.
Until next Wednesday, stay picky! Your mind will thank you later.
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