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Movie Review: The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas
On Saturday, I saw The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas. Most of the reviews of it have been kind of ambiguous; reviewers seem to give it a high rating but don't really explain why it's good. I had to see it to understand why.
The plot: The film is set in Nazi Germany and tells of the family of a high-ranking SS officer (I think he's SS - I'm not certain about the uniform) who is placed in charge of a concentration camp. Told mostly through the eyes of a child, it's in some ways a sentimental look at the period. Bruno, the boy in quesion, befriends a Jewish prisoner working as his dad's gardener, builds himself a swing and reads adventure stories instead of his prescribed history of Germany. But as accurate as that last sentence is, it's a misrepresentation of the film.
One thing I should point out is that this isn't an historically accurate story. I'm not an expert on the period, but I know enough to see that the script has intentionally put inaccuracies in there, just as there are a couple of plot devices that seem a little too convenient to be realistic. But these things don't matter at all. It's like the difference between a painting and a photograph: the photograph might be more realistic but the painting can tell us a lot more. As does this story.
It's a story of terrible things seen through innocent eyes, so of course much of the horror of the period is present only indirectly. Bruno sees the concentration camp from his bedroom window and assumes it's a farm. No one corrects his impression, so he goes right on thinking that. He has been told that Jews are evil and the enemy and accepts this as true, but he doesn't really connect that with the people he knows. He assumes Pavel, the elderly prisoner he befriends, has given up being a doctor "to peel potatoes" because he chose to. It's not until the third act of the film that we really see there's a war going on.
Yet for the audience, the horror is there, just out of sight, like an approaching storm throughout the whole movie. The movie makers assume (and I hope it's a safe assumption) that the audience already knows the things young Bruno doesn't...it would make for a confusing film to someone unfamiliar with the history of the Holocaust. So we know that's no farm out there, and that the black smoke from the chimneys is not burning trash. We watch Bruno's older sister change as she is sucked into the Hitler Youth mentality, if not the movement itself (the family's isolation keeps her out of it). The tension between the SS officer and his wife grows almost unbearably until it snaps, suddenly, with devestating results.
At the core of the story is the tentative friendship between the boy and another boy his own age: Schmuel, an inmate of the camp. The boy finds a way to escape the confines of his home and stumbles across the camp, where he finds Schmuel hiding near the electric fence. Thus begins a chain of events that you know from the beginning must end badly.
What you can't tell is how it will end. I found the experience deeply unsettling, as the small family began to fall apart and although the ending is in some ways inevitable it's not predictable until you're right on top of it. It's like falling off a cliff and being surprised when you hit the bottom, even though you've been watching it rush toward you as you fell.
For any parents reading this: The film is based on a novel of the same name, and the novel, I understand, is aimed at young readers. The movie version got a 12 Cert in the UK. A 12 means children younger than 12 can only watch it if accompanied, not that under-12's can't watch at all. In terms of what you actually see onscreen the certificate is a bit high. But this is not a film to let kids even older than 12 see alone. It's not gory or graphic. It's not even that scary. But it packs an emotional punch that will (and should) upset some kids and the subject matter alone makes it a film you should talk about with youngsters after seeing it.
This movie has joined a very short list of films I never, ever want to watch again...but I'm very glad I've seen it once.
The plot: The film is set in Nazi Germany and tells of the family of a high-ranking SS officer (I think he's SS - I'm not certain about the uniform) who is placed in charge of a concentration camp. Told mostly through the eyes of a child, it's in some ways a sentimental look at the period. Bruno, the boy in quesion, befriends a Jewish prisoner working as his dad's gardener, builds himself a swing and reads adventure stories instead of his prescribed history of Germany. But as accurate as that last sentence is, it's a misrepresentation of the film.
One thing I should point out is that this isn't an historically accurate story. I'm not an expert on the period, but I know enough to see that the script has intentionally put inaccuracies in there, just as there are a couple of plot devices that seem a little too convenient to be realistic. But these things don't matter at all. It's like the difference between a painting and a photograph: the photograph might be more realistic but the painting can tell us a lot more. As does this story.
It's a story of terrible things seen through innocent eyes, so of course much of the horror of the period is present only indirectly. Bruno sees the concentration camp from his bedroom window and assumes it's a farm. No one corrects his impression, so he goes right on thinking that. He has been told that Jews are evil and the enemy and accepts this as true, but he doesn't really connect that with the people he knows. He assumes Pavel, the elderly prisoner he befriends, has given up being a doctor "to peel potatoes" because he chose to. It's not until the third act of the film that we really see there's a war going on.
Yet for the audience, the horror is there, just out of sight, like an approaching storm throughout the whole movie. The movie makers assume (and I hope it's a safe assumption) that the audience already knows the things young Bruno doesn't...it would make for a confusing film to someone unfamiliar with the history of the Holocaust. So we know that's no farm out there, and that the black smoke from the chimneys is not burning trash. We watch Bruno's older sister change as she is sucked into the Hitler Youth mentality, if not the movement itself (the family's isolation keeps her out of it). The tension between the SS officer and his wife grows almost unbearably until it snaps, suddenly, with devestating results.
At the core of the story is the tentative friendship between the boy and another boy his own age: Schmuel, an inmate of the camp. The boy finds a way to escape the confines of his home and stumbles across the camp, where he finds Schmuel hiding near the electric fence. Thus begins a chain of events that you know from the beginning must end badly.
What you can't tell is how it will end. I found the experience deeply unsettling, as the small family began to fall apart and although the ending is in some ways inevitable it's not predictable until you're right on top of it. It's like falling off a cliff and being surprised when you hit the bottom, even though you've been watching it rush toward you as you fell.
For any parents reading this: The film is based on a novel of the same name, and the novel, I understand, is aimed at young readers. The movie version got a 12 Cert in the UK. A 12 means children younger than 12 can only watch it if accompanied, not that under-12's can't watch at all. In terms of what you actually see onscreen the certificate is a bit high. But this is not a film to let kids even older than 12 see alone. It's not gory or graphic. It's not even that scary. But it packs an emotional punch that will (and should) upset some kids and the subject matter alone makes it a film you should talk about with youngsters after seeing it.
This movie has joined a very short list of films I never, ever want to watch again...but I'm very glad I've seen it once.
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It's definitely upsetting. Nonetheless, an exceptional film.
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I'm pretty sure that the movie, even though it's a 12, will be even worse... But I think I might have to go and see it, because I feel I ought to see it at least once.
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Is that right? They didn't give any name for it in the film. That's just as well, actually, because it would have highlighted the inaccuracies and spoiled the effect.
(it becomes apparent what has happened but I wonder whether the movie shows more than the book describes..?)
If you do see the movie, I'd love to know how the ending compares to the book. You don't see it directly on film, but you see enough that it's impossible not to get it. And then it switches to the adults' POV as everyone realises. It's pretty gut-wrenching; might be easier if you know what's coming though. I didn't.
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I probably won't see it until it's out on DVD (I rent more dvds than I go to the cinema) but I shall try and remember to let you know what I think... It's never directly described in the book either.. it's all in his parents reactions. I knew it was coming in the book (the friend had explained the entire plot of the book to me and yet I still felt the need to read it myself..) and it was still awful!