The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Cafe Society
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I rarely go to movies. The last one, prior to this weekend, that I’d been to see was…um…I’m thinking…okay, it’s been so long that I can’t recall which movie I saw last. It’s not that I’m against paying a high price for a ticket (although I don’t find that favorable), or parking, or the overpriced popcorn or any of the other reasons why people don’t go to movies, it’s just that there are other things I’d rather be doing with my time than seeing a movie.

However, this weekend, I went to see the movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. For those who might not have heard about it, the plot is: 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. (I won’t recap the movie, but for a review, you can find one here. It pretty accurately reflects with what I saw.)

However, on Saturday afternoon as the clouds dipped over the city of Harrisburg, I bundled Hallboy and I into the car to head to the movies. I didn’t tell him what the movie was about–he assumed it was a chick flick, although I don’t know that I’ve ever been to more than a handful of them in my life (and rarely has it been one I’ve selected), but he was then somewhat sullen when I mentioned it was an ‘independent’ film. His mood didn’t improve when I mentioned it was a movie about those involved in the Holocaust. “I know about that,” he replied. “I read, and saw, the Diary of Anne Frank and went to the Holocaust Museum twice.” Maybe that is why I surprised him with a Saturday afternoon movie–because he thinks he knows.

I don’t know why I had such an interest in seeing it…I hadn’t seen the previews for it, but read the review somewhere. But, I read a lot of reviews of movies that I’d like to see, and books I’d like to read, and usually don’t follow up once everyday life infringes. Seeing the play Anne Frank and going to the Holocaust Museum in DC just pissed me off in a royal way, leaving me infuriated and my emotions painfully shredded. Sure enough, half way through the movie I realized my arms were crossed in a hostile manner and I’d displayed what surely was a murderous expression on my face. I fought the overwhelming urge to stand up in the darkness of the movie theater and scream “What the f*ck!!!” and rip the cushions from their seats. I don’t think the patrons of the Midtown Cinema would have appreciated my outrage. Empathized with my feelings, yes, but appreciated my outburst, no, so I sat quietly in my seat while the move played. It was interesting, yet no less emotionally sparring, seeing the events of the Holocaust from the other side of Anne Frank’s attic door. The ending, while predictable after 90 minutes, was no less heart wrenching.

I’m not a person to recommend movies. Many leave me with a few less dollars in my pocket, having spent a few hours of my life that I’ll never get back, and a meh feeling towards what I’ve watched. I will, however, recommend this movie. I suspect that it will leave you thinking about striped pajamas long after you’ve left the theater.

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Dopers may be interested in Horn Book’s recent review of the film. (Horn Book Magazine focuses on children’s and young adult literature.)

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I saw the ending coming a mile away. Good acting by the kids, though.

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Thanks, I’m adding this to my NetFlix queue.

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I saw it coming as well, but sat there thinking, “Oh, no, they won’t…will they?”

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I haven’t seen it, but I’ve read the plot spoilers. I honestly don’t understand the appeal of this sort of movie. Not to be dense, but it made you feel extremely sad and angry, right? These are not pleasant emotions, right? Why would you pay money and devote your time to something you know is going to make you feel bad?

I guess my mindset is similar to what Hallboy’s was going into the movie. I learned about the Holocaust in school. I’ve visted the Holocaust museum in DC a couple times. I already understand that the Holocaust was horribly, unspeakably awful. Forcing myself to endure cinematic depictions of it isn’t going to make the odds of another Holocaust any less. It’s not a “Learn from history or be doomed to repeat it” situation – I’m already 100% opposed to genocide. Lesson learned.

I’m really not trying to threads***, here. I would be genuinely interested in hearing a more detailed explanation of what it is about this sort of movie people find appealing. My immediate reaction upon seeing the commercials and realizing it’s about a boy in a concentration camp was, roughly, “Watching that sounds about as pleasant as being beaten with a stick.”

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I’m not likely to see it … may I request a spoiler? :slight_smile:

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Spoilerific plot summary available here.

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To me one of the great things about the book was how annoyingly it was written - in the way that a nine year old speaks and thinks. How does that come across in the movie version?

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Thanks!

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Possible Spoiler Alert! (So sorry, but I don’t know how to do the boxes!)

I cannot speak for anyone else, but for me, this movie made me think. It made me consider not only what life was like for those in the concentration camps, but also for those who were on the “other side” of it, and be able to see that not everyone who was “on the other side” felt the same way. I appreciated being able to see the conflict that the characters experienced–the conflict not only with others, but within themselves. I appreciated being able to see the pattern of realization of realizing that conflict.

For me, those feelings of sadness and anger are temporary emotions, ones which I can deal with and that will spur me in a direction that will motivate my thoughts and opinions, and later, appropriate actions. For me, anger and sadness are not halting emotions, and not ones on which I act. (Hence, why I didn’t rip up the theatre seats.)

Seeing this movie has caused me to examine my own life, my own thoughts, my own actions and those of the world around me, and question what I would do in a similiar circumstance. God knows, I have had thoughts where I’ve “depersonalized” someone, or had a knee jerk thought that someone wasn’t “human”. Seeing this has caused me to become more aware of not acting on those knee jerk thoughts, and hopefully, decrease the rates of those thoughts. I think that seeing this movie has prompted me to think beyond my own comfortable thoughts. Life is not about existing solely in pleasant moments…growth (personal, emotional, etc.) doesn’t come when one is comfortable.

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In my opinion, it focused on a nine year old character, but didn’t limit itself to that. There is a lot left for the viewer to reach on their own–like most independent movies, it doesn’t smack you in the face with the message.

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The book wasn’t about slapping you in the face - but it was written in a very childish way, deliberately, and I found that immersed me into the world of a nine year old very successfully. It made it difficult to read at first, but the effect was excellent.

I was worried about how that translates across to the screen. To me the book wasn’t about a nine year old seeing an extermination camp. It was about seeing an extermination camp through the eyes (and mind) of a nine year old. And I have no idea how they are going to convey that on the silver screen.

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The book is supposed to be a children’s book, isn’t it? I haven’t read it, but I thought I saw a couple of reviews that said it was based on a children’s book.

I agree about not really seeing anything new about the film in terms of message. It struck me as more an exercise in style and as a setup for the oh, so ironic ending, than as having anything truly original to say about the holocaust. I guess it does help drive home the fact that, as one critic put it, the holocaust was not one story about the murder of 6 million people, but 6 million individual stories of murder.

One logistic nitpick, though:

It looked like it was awfully easy to tunnel under that fence. If it was that easy, why wasn’t anybody tunneling OUT? I don’t think I really bought that the kid could get into the camp that way.

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phall0106, thanks for the thoughtful reply.
By the way, this is how you do spoiler boxes:

[spoiler**]Spoiler Text Here[/spoiler**]

Which appears as:

Spoiler Text Here

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Well it is meant to be a teen book. Off the top of my head, the introduction says that it is a book about a nine year old, but not a book for nine year olds.

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I hate to be the one threadshitting since I love movies so much and usually look for the very best in all movies, but I hated this one. It started out annoying to me and then just kept getting more and more annoying. The lead kid was a good actor but it was obviously decided that he couldn’t do a credible German accept for the length of the movie, so they just had everybody else switch to British accents to go along with his. It might well be snarkworthy for American, British, Australian actors to put on a German accent while speaking English in Nazi movies, but now that I’ve seen the results of not doing that, I’ll never snark again. I was taken out of the movie at the start and was never able to get used to it in order to form an emotional bond.

And the chubby-cheeked kid playing the Jew looked exactly like a chubby-cheeked kid playing a kid in a concentration camp with some smudgy makeup on. I didn’t believe him for a second and so had no emotional attachment either. Not that they needed to get a kid and starve him to make him look emaciated, but they could have at least started with a naturally skinny kid, then added the makeup and lighting to make him look like he had actually been living in a concentration camp for a few months and not just a day or two.

There are a dozen other things that made me go “what the…? are you kidding?” like the hole in the fence, but I won’t go on. I was out of the movie anyway so I probably found more things to nitpick than I might have otherwise. I sat there thinking that I really should be into this and all emotional and shit, because I’m a sucker for movies like this and sad movies in general, but I was a rock. Obviously it’s just me because it did affect others, but in my opinion this movie was not a worthy addition to the WWII/Nazi Germany/concentration camp genre.
To end on a more positive note, the one thing that did affect me was the Jewish doctor who was now a broken-down house servant. I ached for him every time he was on screen. I wanted to see a movie about his story.

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Missed the edit window. I also wanted to say that they ought to remake this movie in Germany using German actors speaking German, with English subtitles.

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Oh, yeah, I agree. Matter of fact, Equipoise, I agree with what most of what you said (about the accents, the chubby kid), but for me, I was still able to move past that and get the different perspective that the movie offered.

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It’s sort of a children’s/YA book. It’s billed as “a fable” which is presumably supposed to cover up the more unbelievable parts of the story. I do recommend reading the book–people either love it or hate it and there’s been a lot of argument over whether it’s good or awful. (For myself I fall more on the ‘awful’ side.) Thought-provoking or manipulative? You decide!