The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Review by Anthony Morris

There is a scene early on in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas where the eight year old Bruno (Asa Butterfield) sniffs the air and asks "what's that awful smell?".

A reasonable question, you might think - thing is, it is the middle of World War II, Bruno's father (David Thewlis) is a Nazi who has recently been placed in charge of a death camp, and the smell Bruno's smelling is being blown across from the chimneys at his dad's workplace.  

That is the line the film constantly treads, as the horrors of the Holocaust get a fresh airing through the eyes of a child.

While it's nowhere near as shocking or as effective as the infamous early 1970's National Lampoon article "Children's letters to Himmler" (one bogus "letter" from a Jewish child read "Thank you for my gold star, now I can pretend I am a cowboy sheriff"), there is little denying that this does a solid job of making the familiar seem horrific all over again.  

That's more due to an excellent performance from Asa than the script itself, which never quite manages to capture the fable-like quality of the best-seller its based on as so ends up with a few clunky plot holes, especially once Bruno manages to befriend Shumel (Jack Scanlon), a camp inmate roughly his own age.

How they manage to meet for daily chats through the camp fence becomes increasingly implausible, while the film's climax manages to be shocking, predictable and highly unlikely all at the same time.  

But at least it shows us the Holocaust from a new angle: for that alone its worth a look.

4 out of 5

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Australian release: 19th March, 2009
Official Site: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Cast: Julianne Moore, Gael Garcia Bernal, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Sandra Oh, Alice Braga
Director: Fernando Meirelles