The film is an emotional experience highlighting the tragedy of innocence, using the point of view of an eight-year-old German boy to expose the raw psychological devastation of the era. It's an unnerving film with a knockout punch for an ending, but it feels more acceptable as an educational piece than a profoundly rewarding work of drama.
This movie is based on a book that goes by the same name, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, written by John Boyne. Director Mark Herman did very well and I loved the movie. Herman did a great job in capturing the main character Bruno’s childish innocence, while reaping the brutalities and cruelty of World War II.
It is indeed a light movie about a heavy …show more content…
Bruno is intrigued by the existence of an odd sort of farm he can see from his bedroom window, where all the residents seem to be wearing striped pyjamas. When he tries to find out more about the 'farm‚' he is told not to concern himself with it and certainly not to go near it. We know what Bruno does not, that the ‘farm’ is an extermination camp. His mother is also in ignorance - she believes that they are living next to an internment or labour camp; her husband has sworn under oath never to reveal its real purpose as a killing factory designed to implement the ‘Final Solution’, the systematic eradication of the Jewish people.
Bruno befriends a kitchen worker called Pavel, a sorrowful, shuffling man who wears striped pyjamas under his apron. When Bruno falls from a garden swing and cuts his knee while his mother is out, it is Pavel who takes care of him and dresses the wound. Pavel tells Bruno that he once practiced as a doctor and manages a smile when the boy replies that he couldn’t have been very good at it if he needed to practice.
After weeks of hanging around the house, Bruno finally defies his mother and sneaks out through the back garden in search of adventure. Wandering through the woods, he arrives at a barbed wire fence. On the opposite side, a small boy in striped pyjamas is emptying rubble from a wheelbarrow. Thrilled that he has finally found someone his own age