The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

[Helen D]

This was a difficult film to watch.The eight year old son of a concentration camp commander, who has no idea of the horrors that his country is inflicting on the Jewish people, befriends a boy in the camp. This friendship proves solid in the end with unexpected results.David Thewlis plays the Commandant as cold and determined. His character tries to justify his job as essential for the Fatherland, but all the Nazi crap is balanced, probably not too realistically, by his wife's horror when she realizes what is going on on her doorstep and by his mother's refusal to visit.This was put down to 'illness', but was because she was opposed to the regime.The film is gripping and at times you feel yourself holding your breath - I think everyone in cinema was; there was complete silence for most of the film and for many minutes afterwards. The focus is on the family and the son, Bruno, who is trying to make sense of what is happening. His innocence is crushed a little at a time, but he fails to grasp the full horror of what is happening on what he thinks is a 'farm' nearby; not many people at the time knew of the real purpose of the 'shower rooms' or what was being burned in the camps.Asa Butterfield as Bruno and Jack Scanlon as Schmuel give good performances as the boys, very natural and if the film wasn't so chilling in subject matter you might say charming.Mark Herman directs the film in an understated way that allows the story to unfold. The characters are not forced into good/bad, pigeonholes but have depth, which doesn't seem forced upon us, but allows for a glimpse into how the tragedy of the Holocaust came about and was sustained.As I said a difficult film to watch, but well worth it.