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: 23rd April,
2009
Official
Site: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Cast: Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon, Cara Horgan, Amber Beattie
Director: Mark Herman
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