Plot: The Boy in the Striped Pajama is a movie about a little boy, Bruno (8), who grows up in Germany during the time of the Nazis. Because his father is in a high position in the Nazi party, the family has to move quite often. The family leaves Berlin in order to move to the middle of a forest. The new house is really nice and pretty and soldiers at the entrances are making sure that only people who have the right to enter can come in. When Bruno chooses his room and looks out of his new window, he can vaguely see a house. He decides that this house must be farm. When he sees, that all residents of this "farm" wear "striped pajamas" he thinks that these residents are not quite normal. Despite that fact he sees that there are children on this farm and due to his enormous boredom he asks his mother if he can go play with these children. His mother, who clearly knows that the house is not a farm, does not allow him to leave his family's property. At the same time, one of those residents in the striped pajamas comes to the family's house, in order to peel their potatoes for them. When Bruno hurts himself playing on his swing, the Jewish man from the concentration camp helps him take care of his wound. Bruno keeps saying that his wound might be dangerous, but the man assures that he will be fine. At that point Bruno says "How would you know, you're not a doctor" and the man answers "Yes I am". This statement confuses Bruno as he does not understand why the man would give up a good job to become a farmer and peel other people's potatoes. Bruno decides to go visit the farm. He escapes through a basement window and runs to the concentration camp's barbed wire fence. Once he gets there he finds a boy of his age, Shmuel. The two boys become friends and from that day on they frequently hang out on the fence. Soon Bruno realizes, that something must be wrong with his father's occupation and that the house that Shmuel lives in cannot be a farm. When the Jewish potato peeler disappears one day and when Bruno's private teacher explains to him how evil the Jewish people are, Bruno slowly realizes what is happening and doubts his father's actions more and more. Bruno's mother herself does not know what exactly is happening in the concentration camp, but when her Nazi driver the disgustingly comments "They smell even worse when they burn", she understands the secret that her husband has kept from her all this while. She does not believe that her husband could do something like that and decides to take her children and move away. On his last day with Shmuel, Bruno craves for an adventure. He puts on Shmuel's striped suit, digs a whole underneath the fence and breaks into the concentration camp. Once he is inside the concentration camp, the two boys start looking for Shmuel's dad who had mysteriously disappeared a couple of days before. Soon Bruno realizes how little fun this farm is. He sees the cruelty that is going on in the camp and wants to leave it as soon as possible. However, when the two boys are looking in one of the sleeping houses, all the residents are pushed into a room. No one really knows what is happening, until the door is being closed and gas starts flowing into the room. At the same time, Bruno's family notices that he has disappeared. They find his clothes at the fence and the father runs into the concentration camp to find his son. Sadly he only finds out, that it is already too late. This is where the movie ends.
Interpretation: The film was most likely one of the most depressing movies that I have ever seen. There were lots of extremely sad moments and pretty much nothing about it had any positive aspect to it, just the sad reality. The propaganda of that time is displayed really nicely in the movie, as a film about a concentration camps for the television is shown in the movie. The camps were displayed as these great, fun places where everyone would want to hang out to do all sorts of free time activities. The movie also shows, that not all Germans knew what was happening at that time. As soon as the mother realizes what is really happening in the camps, she insists on leaving her husband. The fact that the Nazis were very delusional is also well represented. They did not at all seem to doubt that what they were doing was right. The end of the movie teaches the cruel father, what what he has been doing to so many people feels like. His reaction has been left to interpretation, but it seems plausible that he might have left the party after that experience. All in all, the movie is very cruel, has a very strong message and gets you to think about it.
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As the poster above stated the movie is extremely depressing and becomes harder and harder to watch as it nears the end. Once Bruno decides that he is going to enter the camp and help Shmuel the eventual ending becomes clearly evident and because of this the final ten minutes or so are extremely difficult to bear. The movie does an extraordinary job of depicting the very focused story about Bruno and Shmuel while making sure to bring everything into perspective, the viewer is able to sympathize with all who are innocent victims of the Holocaust.
ReplyDeleteThere are a couple of features of the movie that I found very interesting. The first of which was the propaganda film about the the concentration camps. I was just very shocked to see how such a despicable place could be framed in such a way. The second piece of the film that was interesting to me was the how a lot of the Nazi symbolism and extravagance was toned down when compared to some other film with this type of subject matter. I'm not sure entirely why the filmmakers chose to go the route, my assumption is that it was more historically accurate for this type of area to be depicted in such a way.
NOTE: THIS IS MICHAEL SIROIS POSTING UNDER SAM SHEPLER'S ACCOUNT (BECAUSE BLOGSPOT DOESN'T SEEM TO WORK FOR ME)
ReplyDeleteI found the film to possess a deeper message. It is easy for us to understand how awful life in the concentration camps was for the Jewish people. The film shows us this with both skill and ease as many films before have done the same. What I found interesting about this film was that it was the little German boy who was the main character of the film, and how the majority of the film is told from inside the perspective of the family of the commander of the concentration camp.
Though we know of the father's line of work at the camp and his fabrication of the truth with his propaganda videos, he still is portrayed as a loving father and a loving husband in some way or another. He asks his children if they want to leave, his listens to his wife whether with reluctance or not. The sister of the boy--the Nazi youth--she can be pathetic and disgusting at times, but other times she overs her younger brother sisterly love and cares for him.
The mother, most of all, is the perfect example. She is a good person in a bad society, whose influence hasn't yet corrupted her. After the ending however, all may change, but my point is that it was interesting how it offered the German Nazi family another side. Instead of dehumanizing them as some films, we understand that they are still human, still a family, still possess love for one another. Also, another opposing point is that if we understand that these people are just like us and are capable of doing such things then this film is all the more terrifying.