Boy in Striped Pyjamas

Boy in Striped Pyjamas

The film The Boy in Striped Pyjamas approaches the story of the Holocaust in a captivating, original and tragic way. The film, set during World War II, follows the story of the innocent Bruno, an 8 year-old German child, whose father is a commandant that is charged with the running of a concentration camp for Jewish prisoners of war in the country side. Bruno and his family move away from the city, to live closer to the camp, a shift that results in a dynamic change for young Bruno, whose innocence results in a fatal, tragic accident.
Lonely, having moved away from his friends in the city, Bruno occupies himself about the house as best he can while his father works, but he is forbidden to go into the backyard. This is because there is a clear view of the work camp in which the Jewish prisoners slave each day. Unaware of whom these people were, what they were doing, and why they were doing it. Bruno simply thinks they are farmers. Unaffected by influences from, his sister, his tutor and the young SS lieutenant Kotler, who are all extremely anti-Semitic, who tell him “they aren’t real people”, Bruno   endeavours to find his way to the camp, where he meets a small, Jewish child named Shmuel, whom he quickly befriends. After several secret visits to see his new friend, taking games and food along with him, Bruno, still unaware of the true nature of the camp, decides he will crawl under the fence to join his Shmuel on the inside, to help him find his missing father who has been gassed. This action has dire consequences for Bruno, whose innocence is a fatal attribute in a time of such intolerable hatred and relentless genocide.  
This film presents a very ironic, saddening tragedy to audiences that are not used to seeing the Holocaust from a German point of view. The story is enthralling, with excellent acting from the entire cast, and touching montages of Bruno’s loneliness, depicting him idling slowly on his tire swing to trying to play with toys that have...