Film Review: The Boy in Striped Pyjamas

Reviewed by Kerrie Ternes

Director: Mark Herman

Writers: John Boyne (novel), Mark Herman (screenplay)

This is a movie designed to be watched (with a group) and discussed afterwards.

“Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.”  The review from the IMDB website sets the scene for this horrifying movie.

The horror of this movie, for me, lies in the fact that from a certain point onwards the ending was apparent and, after watching the rest of the movie thinking there would be a twist in the tail, finding the horrific ending fulfilled.

Amidst the vast array of literature and movies currently being produced about the Nazi era in Germany this film offers a new take on an otherwise jaundiced topic. Mark Hadley (Sydneyanglicans.net) suggests it is deliberately produced as an educational tool for a new generation to learn about the barbarism of Hitler in Nazi Germany

Themes of childhood innocence can be explored – of carefree German Bruno compared to that of Saul, the imprisoned Jewish boy. Is it actually childishness rather than childhood innocence being displayed here? The wilful blindness of Bruno’s mother is explored. As is some exploration of the notion of guilt by association, through the people of Germany, as portrayed in the difficult relationship between Bruno’s grandmother and grandfather.

I am wondering if the deliberate fostering of horror, by using the character of a child, is the best means of touching a callused computer-saturated generation.