CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 11/07/08

Defining Lines

By peter clines

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Mark Herman (also directed)
Adapted from the novel by John Boyne

When his father (David Thewlis) gets a promotion, little Bruno (Asa Butterfield) and his family have to move to a new home by an odd farm, one where the workers wear their pajamas during the day. It's when he sneaks off to explore the farm that Bruno meets and befriends Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a boy about his own age who isn't allowed outside the fence, for reasons neither of them quite understand. While several films (Life is Beautiful, Jakob the Liar) have shown Holocaust stories that involve young children, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is unique in that it's done almost entirely from Bruno's innocent, sheltered point of view. The atrocities all lurk off camera, more visible to us because we know what's really going on. Bruno's default position, however, is that his father is a wonderful man who does good things, and the film never deviates from that view, or the assumptions it guides the little boy to make. Even when Shmuel is beaten by father's assistant, the scary Lt. Kotler (Rupert Friend), Bruno still believes the adults in his world must be acting on a higher wisdom. Some of the best horror involves a child, and some of the best drama happens when someone doesn't realize a terrible mistake they're making. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas uses both of these elements in a powerful story about childhood innocence and adult monsters.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Miramax Films
Rated PG-13; 95 min.

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Peter Clines has had a lifelong love affair with the movies. He grew up in New England, where he studied English literature and education, and now lives and writes somewhere in Southern California. If anyone knows exactly where, he would appreciate a few hints.



The Boy in the Striped Pajamas courtesy Miramax Films

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