The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Starring Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga
Directed by Mark Herman
Based on the novel by John Boyne
Rating: M
Closely adapted from the remarkable novel by the same name, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is yet another heart-wrenching, but magical holocaust film to roll into cinemas this year.
We learn the story from the eyes of Bruno, who is the son of an SS Commander who has been promoted from a desk job in Berlin to the head of a death camp in the middle of nowhere.
Bruno can't understand the sudden frosty tension between his beloved parents or why he is forbidden to visit the strange farm he can see from his bedroom window, where the adults and children walk around in strange striped pyjamas.
The innocence of Bruno trying to picklock all the mysteries is touching. He sneaks out one day and goes exploring to the farm. There he befriends Shmuel, a starving boy of the same age. With the fence separating them, they exchange tokens, play draughts, and try to understand the prejudices and propaganda separating them.
The casting of the film was nothing but brilliant. The relationship between Asa Butterfield's curious and innocent Bruno and Jack Scanlon's understandably gloomy, but equally innocent Shmuel is exceptional. David Thewlis and Vera Farmiga are wonderfully icy as the overprotective parents, whose lies about the death camp are as hollow as their own relationship.
The aesthetics of this film are remarkable. The setting, dialogue, and soundtrack are all equally simply, but deeply moving. What Mark Herman has achieved is a film uncluttered with the detail we all know so well. The result isn't a deep film, but a profound one, reducing the experience to a child's level, making it all the more heartbreaking.
Apart from a few slip ups with dialogue and acting throughout, and the blunt ending doing the film no justice, it is pretty much impeccable. It is an amazingly heart wrenching film that will conjure emotions within you that you didn't know you had. It is hugely affecting, and engages the complexity of the Holocaust in a language that can move children as profoundly as adults.
4 Stars :)
