X
- 2008
- PG-13
- Miramax
- 1 h 34 m
- 2008
- PG-13
- Miramax
- 1 h 34 m
Summary The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a powerful fictional story that offers a unique perspective on how prejudice, hatred and violence affect innocent people, particularly children, during wartime. Through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy largely shielded from the reality of World War II, we witness a forbidden friendship that forms betwee...
Directed By: Mark Herman
Written By: John Boyne, Mark Herman
- 2008
- PG-13
- Miramax
- 1 h 34 m
- 2008
- PG-13
- Miramax
- 1 h 34 m
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
55
7.2
Where to Watch
Summary The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a powerful fictional story that offers a unique perspective on how prejudice, hatred and violence affect innocent people, particularly children, during wartime. Through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy largely shielded from the reality of World War II, we witness a forbidden friendship that forms betwee...
Directed By: Mark Herman
Written By: John Boyne, Mark Herman
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 28 Critic Reviews
55
57% Positive
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
25% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
18% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 28 Critic Reviews
55
57% Positive
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
25% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
18% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
And yet the great conundrum of the Holocaust is that it was perpetrated by human beings, not monsters. Few movies have rendered this puzzle so powerfully.
The film has any number of chances to exploit the setting and Butterfield's wide-eyed innocence, but instead, it mines a vast, eerie tension by keeping both boys in the dark.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 155 User Ratings
7.2
71% Positive
110 Ratings
110 Ratings
22% Mixed
34 Ratings
34 Ratings
7% Negative
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 155 User Ratings
7.2
71% Positive
110 Ratings
110 Ratings
22% Mixed
34 Ratings
34 Ratings
7% Negative
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
World War II and **** are themes that cinema has explored abundantly, and the list of good films grows every decade. The particularity that makes this film remarkable is that it takes us to see everything through the innocent eyes of a child, who cannot understand what is really happening, and to what extent his own family is involved in the atrocities that we know happened.
Bruno is a child who lives a sheltered and carefree childhood. He is the son **** army officer, and the family is wealthy. He knows that his country is at war and that his father is important, and he is helping his country to win the war. But this is basically all he knows or understands about what goes on in the Germany of his time. When his father is ordered to go to the countryside, Bruno is very sad to leave his house and his friends, but he meets a strange child, who wears striped pajamas and lives inside a fenced enclosure, which his mother does not wanted him to see. She's the only one in the family who really understands what her husband is there to do, and the only one to protest it all.
The film is based on a novel written by John Boyne, but despite the source material and the film's fidelity to it, I wonder how immune a ten-year-old could really be to the avalanches of **** propaganda, considering that his father was a high-ranking official and the family had natural political connections to the **** regime. I don't mean to say that I disagree with Bruno's innocence and the way he doesn't know what's really going on, but it just seems hard to believe, since the **** used all means, including youth organizations and public education, to convey their ideology to younger people.
The cast does a truly remarkable job. The spotlight naturally goes to Asa Butterfield and Jack Scanlon. The two young actors knew how to work perfectly and created a very good working relationship, which gives credibility to the friendship of their characters. It's their effort that makes the film particularly touching and human. David Thewlis also did an extraordinary job, incarnating in his character the contradiction of a loving and caring family man who is responsible for the planned and meticulous slaughter of a huge number of people. Is he a monster? Was he turned into a monster? In clear contrast, Vera Farmiga gives life to a courageous mother and wife, who finds herself in the need to protect her children from a reality she cannot agree with, and in which her husband is totally immersed. She is, like Bruno, able to see the human and innocent side of the people her husband says aren't "really people", even though she eventually has to silence what she really thinks about German politics in order not to suffer. Its consequences. Amber Beattie, on the other hand, shows us what happened to many German children and young people, victims of massive **** propaganda from an early age. Nevertheless, she is human, and her love interest in a young SS man reveals it, though it sends her further into the **** frenzy. The film also has the very relevant participation of Rupert Friend and David Hayman.
Shot mostly in locations around Budapest, the film has a very beautiful, vivid, colorful and luminous cinematography, which fades and shadows as the film moves towards the end. There is a remarkable contrast between Bruno's house in the city (warmer colors, more light) and the gloomy house he goes to later (washed out colors, shadows, less light and a much heavier and more tense environment). The sets, costumes and props are good and in keeping with the time and context. I didn't see any anachronism errors. The soundtrack, signed by James Horner, is memorable and stays in the ear.
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One of the most excellent movies ever made. For me, the movie didn't turn out sympathizing the perpetrators, as what the critics said. It's about how the tables turned. Using the innocency of a child to convey the sad outcome of the movie is mind-blowing. Very intelligent but painful and tragically beautiful movie.
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Because its gaze is so level and so unyielding, it stands as one of the better dramatic films made on this subject (although it's not nearly as fine as Louis Malle's "Au Revoir les Enfants."
The film's two levels -- metaphoric and nitty-gritty -- don't mesh until the devastation of the closing sequence, which both indulges in and transcends melodrama.
Although it's a far less objectionable Holocaust revision than, say, Roberto Benigni's "Life Is Beautiful," Herman's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is yet another attempt to revisit a sorrowful event in history that should never be forgotten or used for entertainment.
Herman fails to journey beyond the surface-level realities of his central perspective, which makes his film feel half-developed and poorly conceived, and drives it into sensationalism.
See the Holocaust trivialized, glossed over, kitsched up, commercially exploited and hijacked for a tragedy about a Nazi family. Better yet and in all sincerity: don't.
Amazing movie, story was perfectly made and sad. Historically it wasnt so accurate, which is one and only downside. But most of the historical unaccuraties were small.
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The eight year old son of a **** officer in charge of a WWII concentration camp strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young Jewish boy of the same age being held captive in the camp.
A lot of criticism has been aimed at this movie for sanitizing and failing to convey the true horrors of the **** concentration camps, and I can’t really argue with that. The movie is well made however (although I don’t understand why everyone talks in a middle class English accent!) with excellent performances from the two young friends could act as a good starting point for introducing the subject to younger people and promoting further discussion, which in my mind can only a good thing.
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"The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" was an experimental film, where we reflected the suffering of the Jews captive by the Germans in World War II, the history reflected was very good and very moving, especially the sad end of the film and the Message that conveys us through friendship.
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Production Company
Miramax,
BBC Film,
Heyday Films
Release Date Nov 7, 2008
Duration 1 h 34 m
Rating PG-13
Tagline A timeless story of innocence lost and humanity found.
Awards
CinEuphoria Awards
• 4 Wins & 4 Nominations
British Independent Film Awards
• 1 Win & 3 Nominations
Chicago International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
