Film Review: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Exploring the Holocaust from a new perspective

By Yaffi Spodek

Issue of Dec. 19, 2008

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a riveting Holocaust film, directed by Mark Herman, and based on the fictional 2006 novel of the same name by John Boyne.

Set in 1940s Europe, at the peak of Hitler’s rise to power, the movie tells the story of Bruno (Asa Butterfield), an eight-year-old German, whose father (David Thewlis) is a top commandant in the Nazi party. One day, young Bruno is informed that he is moving away from his lavish home in Berlin to relocate, with his parents and sister, to the countryside.

Their new house, stark and unwelcoming, is on the outskirts of a concentration camp, whose imposing barbed wire fences can be seen in the distance.

As the film’s protagonist, Bruno possesses the naiveté of an inquisitive child trying to understand what is happening around him.

Bruno believes he is living next door to a farm, though he can’t understand why the farmers wear striped pajamas and caps, or what they do all day, though he senses that they are somehow different. He also innocently wonders what the source is for the acrid-smelling smoke billowing out from the camp every few days.

Questioning his family yields no results, confusing him even further and motivating him to uncover the mystery of the farm.

His mother (Vera Farmiga) isn’t immediately aware of the atrocities being committed in her backyard. But once the horrible reality is revealed, tension escalates. Family members are forced to choose between continuing in their blind adherence to the brutality of the Germans, and following their moral compasses to withstand the powerful pressure of the Nazis, often at risk to their lives.

Lonely with no playmates, save for Gretel (Amber Beattie), his patronizing and precocious older sister, Bruno begins to explore and his stubborn curiosity takes him farther than anyone imagined. Through the barbed wire, he meets Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a Jewish prisoner, and the two form a secret and unlikely friendship.

The brilliance of both the novel and the movie is how everything is handled in a subtle yet jarring way. Though the name of the camp is not uttered once in the film and there is no direct mention of what transpires there, the truth is made obvious through graphic innuendos. Those who read the book know that the camp is intended to be Auschwitz –– or “Out-with,” as it is euphemistically referred to in the novel.

Though the movie is infinitely more effective than the book in showing the physical horrors of the Holocaust, the novel stands on its own merits by successfully portraying Bruno’s personal quest to discover and make sense of the truth. The reader benefits from hearing the narrative as told from Bruno’s perspective, highlighting the internal struggle he faces to understand the incomprehensible.

Readers will also find that the movie omits several details from the novel that could have enhanced the film and perhaps quickened the somewhat slow-moving pace that the movie assumes. Though the basic plot is unchanged, differences between the movie and novel allow for each to take on a slightly distinctive tone and underlying message. While the book’s main focus is on the question of morality as conveyed through Bruno’s introspective observations, the movie allows for this theme to be greatly broadened, depicting the same ethical conflict as it affects the rest of the characters, including adults who cannot hide behind the untainted virtue of a child.

Trapped between what he knows to be right and the disturbing realization that those around him are violating those principles of goodness, Bruno turns to Shmuel for clarity, and more significantly for the companionship that they are both desperately seeking. As the time passes, their bond deepens, and they forge an irrevocable connection, intertwining their destinies forever.

If you’re in the mood to read a quick but intriguing novel, or to watch a captivating movie on the big screen, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is well worth your time. It will certainly give you something to think about long after you’ve put down the book and left the theater.