In an era of romantic chick flicks and frat boy comedies it is not often that you find a film that can be described as heartbreakingly beautiful. Until now. Based on the hugely successful young-adult novel by Dubliner John Boyne, which has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, centres around eight-year-old Bruno, the son of a Nazi commandant who is uprooted from his posh home in Berlin to the bleak countryside on the grounds of Auschwitz. Bored and anxious, the young boy who loves to explore, eventually finds a way to sneak out into the back gardens where he strikes up a forbidden friendship with Schmuel, a young Jewish boy of the same age, who is imprisoned on the other side of an electrical barbed wire fence.
A haunting, yet unexplored view of the Holocaust, here we experience life through the eyes of the tragedy’s most innocent, its children, who ironically are virtually unaware of the effect it is having on their lives. Innocent questions about why all the farmers out back wear pyjamas come from Bruno, who does not quite understand that the numbers emblazoned on the uniforms are not part of a game, while a belief that the wretched smell coming from large smoke stacks is that of burning clothes makes us aware that even the imprisoned children were still naively unaware of the going-ons in the camp.
Playing the adorably wide-eyed and filthy Schmuel, Jack Scanlon should be commended for a beautiful, screen-stealing, debut performance that perfectly captures how disheartening and confusing the situation must have been for young children living in the camps.
Other notable performances include David Thewli (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ) as Bruno’s father, a quasi-evil man with an obvious hatred of the Jews but with an obvious deep love for his wife and children, and David Hayman (Rob Roy ) as Pavel, a sad-faced Jewish doctor who has been reduced to a potato-peeling servant in the family’s home.
Though other have claimed it strays too far from the book, overall, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a great film for both young and old alike, just do not forget the tissues. With a ending that will both shock and surprise, you will definitely be needing one or two...or 10.
