The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

2008. Dir: Mark Herman. Starring: Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga and Rupert Friend. ●●●●○

I saw The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas last night and before I go any further into the review I have to confess this was one of the most moving films I've ever seen about the Holocaust, and I cried at the crushing finale. I will say no more about the end so you can read on spoiler free, suffice to say not a single person in the theatre talked on the way out of the movie.

The film, like the John Boyne novel on which it is based, looks at a horrific piece of twentieth century history through the eyes of an eight year old boy. The camera follows our here Bruno (Butterfield) thoughout the film, tellingly the point of view only shifts to other characters when they are directly searching for him - like all 8 year olds he enjoys exploring.

It begins with Bruno and his family (Thewlis and Farmiga are his parents) moving from their Berlin home that they love to a smaller place in the country. Bruno is naturally distraught by leaving his friends, grandparents and the streets he enjoys playing with, and the prison like house he moves to does nothing to improve this attitude.

Early on Bruno spots a farm, where all the farmers wear striped pyjamas, and in the course of his exploring he meets a boy from the farm through the barbed wire fences that surround it. Being adults we are more fully aware that the farm is a concentration camp and the farmers are Jewish prisoners.

As Bruno's friendship with Shmuel (Scanlon) develops he begins to question what his father is doing there, and why the Jews have been imprisoned. Eventually their relationship reaches a tragic conclusion.

Both of the boys give fine performances, although the first time they net they did seem to be speaking lines rather than talking to each other - possible an issue with the script rather than the acting. Farmiga gives a superb performance as a doting wife and mother who slowly learns the truth about the prison camp and whose love for her husband is destroyed by his actions and his attitude to the party.

The rest of the cast come across as one-dimensional, although I expect that is a deliberate lift from the book, where their choices will be restricted by the way they interact with the children.

The design of the film does have it's issues - the concentration camp appears to have no guards or watchtowers on one side which seems utterly unrealistic. There are also times when James Horner's score seems to be forcing the action rather than reinforcing it.

Overall this is a superb film about the Holocaust from a child eye view and it would be a good way of introducing a younger audience to the basics about what happened.