Review: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Best film I’ve seen in ages.
How do you film the Holocaust? You can go for realism but risk sentimentality (Schindler’s List), or you can go for whimsy but arrive at irreverence (Life is Beautiful). The genius of John Boyne’s book, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, is that the awful evil of the Final Solution is tempered tenderly by its telling through the eyes of a child. The result is harrowing, but most of all, beautiful.
8 year-old Bruno (a remarkable Asa Butterfield) moves with his family to the country so that his father can start a new job. Bored and lonely, Bruno sees a farm in the distance and wants to play with the children there. He does not understand why the people at the farm wear “striped pyjamas” nor why his parents won’t let him explore in the woods near the farm.
Bruno’s father is an SS commandant. The farm is a labour camp. The children are Jews.
Bruno eventually manages to reach the camp fence where he meets a young Jewish boy, Shmuel, on the other side. They become friends, despite the electric fence that separates them.
Under Mark Herman’s script and direction, the story unfolds in tender and horrifying ways. Most brilliant is the discovery, through child’s eyes, of the Other. Bruno is told at home that the Jews are monstrous, a lie to which Shmuel is testament. Equally powerful is the way we see Bruno’s desperate need to be proud of his father, even as he begins to sense the great evil for which his father is guilty.
The end of this film is horrific beyond words, but never descends into cheap exploitation, and despite the enormity of the crime, and the tragedy of these boys’ friendship, I left the film full of light and love. Film rarely achieves this. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is more than a film. I normally hate throwing around such superlatives, but there you go.
10/10
Opens nationwide in the US, October 14.
Please tell me it’s more Schindler’s List than Life is Beautiful. LIB is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.
Comment by jjohnsen — September 26, 2008 @ 12:06 pm
It’s a fantasy — is it likely two boys could enjoy such a friendship? — but it does not have an ounce of whimsy. Compelling, serious, brilliant.
Comment by The Brit — September 26, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
Really? I loved Life is Beautiful when it came out. I saw the last half on TV a few months back and was surprised how much it still held up. Ditto with Schindler’s List.
I think my problem is that after so many holocaust movies I really have zero desire to ever see an other one. Even movies about other atrocities sit unwatched. (Hotel Rwanda has been on my DVR for about six months now) Even if they are apt to be extremely well made and acted I’m not sure I want to see it.
Comment by Clark — September 26, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
In many ways, this isn’t a Holocaust movie. We only see the camp and the other Jews in the last 5 minutes. Mostly, it’s a film about a German boy, his SS father, and Shmuel. There’s an innocence to it which is fresh and ennobling.
Comment by The Brit — September 26, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
Cool. Can’t wait.
Amazing how many WWII-themed films are coming out this fall.
Amazing too that so many strong films continue to be mined from this subject. Though not a “Holocaust” movie, I thought the WWII-themed The Lives of Others (out of Germany) one of the best films of the past few years.
And yes, Schindler’s List became unhinged by sentimentality at the end. A problem with most Spielberg movies, unfortunately. So much so that I’m suprised the phrase “he pulled a Spielberg” or “the movie got all Spielbergian at the end” have not entered into our film lexicon.
Comment by Matt Thurston — September 26, 2008 @ 2:29 pm
Life is Beautiful is my all-time favorite movie. What’d you hate about it, jjohnsen?
Comment by Susan M — September 26, 2008 @ 5:36 pm
I’m a little bit bothered by the idea of a movie about an 8yo in Auschwitz because I think it’s inaccurate. Most of the children were killed right away, not kept in the camp, right? Does the film address that?
Comment by Susan M — September 26, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
Susan,
The film is deliberately and honestly fabulist.
Comment by Ronan — September 27, 2008 @ 3:10 am
Thank you for your site
I made with photoshop backgrounds for myspace or youtube and whatever
my backgrounds:http://tinyurl.com/6ptkxd
take care and thank you again!
Comment by createmo — November 2, 2008 @ 4:53 am
I felt that this movie needed more closure.
I felt like i needed to see more of the end.
This was by far the saddest movie i have ever seen.
Comment by brittany — December 1, 2008 @ 6:40 pm
i loved this movie! Bruno had so much innocence. that is what made the story so shocking and sad. he had no idea that such horriabl things were going on all around him. I had tears streming down my face at the end, but i really did love it.
Comment by Rachel — December 8, 2008 @ 6:36 pm