The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas (2008)

Tonight, I wanted to look at The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" a 2008 Holocaust drama.

This movie is based off the novel of the same name by John Boyne, which I have yet to read (although it's on my list). So this isn't a comparison, as I have nothing to compare the movie to.

The movie is seen through the eyes of two 8 year old boys. One the son of a Nazi commander. The other, a Jewish prisoner.

Roger Ebert proposed " the film is not even attempting to be a forensic reconstruction of Germany during the war, but "about a value system that survives like a virus".

What  makes me leery to watch this movie was the fact it's about children. I don't hate kids, but let's be honest...typically children are fairly annoying in films. (Ethan Embry in Dutch, anyone?). Although, I will say the fact Vera Farmiga is in this movie is a silver lining. I've always known of her work, and always knew she was a rather talented, and sadly underrated actress. However, her performance on tv's Bates Motel is fantastic, and I think I can go as far to say that she's the force that holds that show together, and I was even leery about watching that show because Hitchcock is one of top 5 favorite directors, so to make something related to Psycho that he wasn't a part of, bothered me. and also, I couldn't stop thinking of Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates back in the early 2000s, that was a horrendous movie. The worst remake I've seen to date.

But, I digress. Onto the movie. 
 
We open with a quote from John Betjeman, an English poet. Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows. Fitting, I suppose.

We open to Bruno pretending to be a airplane with his friends, running around the city that is covered in swastikas. Bruno seems rather oblivious to the fact that people, specifically Jewish people, are being arrested, and carried onto a large truck. I know he's young, but even infants can tell when something is wrong. Bruno just continues to play. Until he notices there's commotion in his house.

Bruno's dad, Ralf got a promotion, he's still a soldier, "just a more important one" and that means moving, from Berlin to Poland.

A few miles from the new house is a "farm" that Bruno can see from his window, and wonders why the "farmers" wear pajamas, especially after one comes into the kitchen to give vegetables to the family. Ralf responds with "those farmers aren't really people" which naturally, confuses Bruno further. He wants to play with the kids he sees, but he can't, because "they're strange".

However, a few weeks after the move, he's playing airplane outside and notices a gate outside of the house is left open, and being a kid, he's going to explore. Except Elsa, catches him and reminds him that the back is out of bounds. Hm, telling a kid they can't have something doesn't make them want it all the more or anything.

Bruno decides to make a tire swing, and one of "farmers" has to go gather the tire for him. Bruno falls off, and cuts his leg, but the "farmer" Pavel, bandages it up for him, knowing he doesn't need to go to the hospital, because he was a doctor before becoming a "farmer".

I really like the correlation between farmer and Jewish prisoner. I feel like while I'm sure being a Jewish prisoner is of course way worse than being a farmer, in a kids eye, they probably do look relatively the same.

Elsa comes home a minute later, and thanks Pavel, for helping Bruno. Which adds something to the character, of not only Elsa, but people in the era, who maybe didn't agree with the Nazi frame of mind, and there were such people, naturally. They just get overshadowed.

Bruno, and his sister Gretel get a tutor, instead of going to an actual school, in which the tutor does not want Bruno to read adventure books, because he wants him to start reading facts. The tutor gives him Deutscher Almanach, an almanic spaning from 1924-1937. Yeah, that's what kids want to read. While reading on his swing, Bruno notices the gate to the "farm" is open again, and fights the urge not to open it, but come on, he's 8. 

At roughly 30 minutes in we're introduced to Shumel, who is digging in the dirt while the adults build a new house. Once again, this would have never happened, he wold have worked, or been killed.

Nothing of importance happens for about 15 minutes, when Elsa smells the chimneys burning and Ralf's second-in-command mentions "They smell worse when they burn, don't they?" Elsa, then realizes what kind of soldier her husband is, I think she always knew he was a Nazi, but knowing and knowing are sometimes two very different things. Elsa begins yelling how wrong it is, and its done very well. But chances are, a wife would never talk to her husband, who is also a Nazi official the way she is. Nor a wife of a man who wasn't a Nazi, it just wasn't done.

Grandpa comes to visit, Grandma doesn't come because she's "under the weather" but Elsa knows is because she doesn't approve of what Ralf does, and makes a point to mention it. 

Kurt, Ralf's right hand man mentions at the visit with Grandpa that he is no longer in touch with his father because he left Germany to go to Switzerland. Ralf and Grandpa begin to call the father a coward for not sticking with Germany at the time it was needed most. Obviously, this angers Kurt. Pavel, accidentally spills wine onto Kurt's lap, and Martin takes his anger out of Pavel, you don't see anything, but in a scene like this audio is all you really need to get the emotions running.

Shmuel, is transferred to work inside the house, because he has small hands, that can clean the dishes. Bruno gives Shmuel some food, when Martin walks in and notices him eating, and insists he was stealing food, when he says that Bruno was his friend, Bruno rejects Shmuel, to save himself. It's a rather sad scene, but ultimately, not that uncommon, even today.

Bruno at this point, has realized his father may not be the "great man" he thought he was at the beginning of the film, but then he catches a propaganda film, that makes the work camp look like that summer camp from The Parent Trap. Bruno naturally believes it, and hugs Ralf around the middle, and is back to thinking he's the greatest man on earth.

Shmuel is still willing to be friends with Bruno after he apologizes for lying. Which is also a nice scene of how quickly kids are to forgive.

Ralf gets a call from home, Grandma died in a bombing, and so to add even more emotions to this movie, we are presented with a funeral scene.

Elsa convinces Ralf that Poland is no place for children to grow up, and Bruno and Gretel, his sister are moving to live with the aunt. Shumel can't find his father, who went to another "work detail" with some other men, and none of them have come back yet. Bruno really wants to make up for lying the other day, and decides the best way to do it is to help Shumel find his father, so he digs under the barbed wire into the camp. The only problem is, Bruno doesn't look like Shumel, so in exchange for a sandwich, Shumel will bring him some "pajamas"

Bruno and Shumel are looking in a hut for Shumel's dad (while Bruno's family looks for him in a panic). When it is raided by Nazis, and Bruno is stuck in the middle.

Elsa and Gretel realize that Bruno went to the camp when the notice a window open, and the sandwich dropped along the way. Elsa quickly gets Ralf, who is in a meeting regarding what seems to be "gas chamber capacity".

I think we can all see the writing on the wall.

When the Nazi yell for everyone to take their clothes off, Bruno and Shumel assume they're going to take a shower.

Unfortunately, by the time Ralf gets to the chamber to save his son. The chamber is quiet.

Our movie ends with Elsa screaming in agony over what happened. Ralf unable to process what happened, and a shot of the Jewish prisoners clothes.

I think this movie has power, and I highly recommend it, it does have a few historical inaccuracies but they can pretty easily be overlooked.

I also think it's message can still be applied today. But that it goes much deeper than "Don't hate someone because they're different".

Check it out, it's worth your time, and the kids do an excellent job. Something I wasn't sure if I was going to get to say.