Once in a while you watch a movie that you just can’t stop thinking about. If you are a movie reviewer, you eventually have to write about it.
This story takes place in early 1940’s Berlin. For most people everything feels swell. Young Bruno is living in a perfect world, flying through the neighborhood streets with his friends, arms outstretched pretending to soar high up in the sky.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is the story of the nine-year-old son of a Nazi Commander. Bruno (Asa Butterfield) arrives home to find his home in a stir. The servants are busy cleaning glasses and polishing tables for the party to celebrate his father’s new post, an important new post. They are moving to the countryside and Bruno has to leave his home and friends behind. Very soon Bruno and his sister Gretel are swept away from the home and city they love and set down in a place with gates, walls, and no friends.
Bruno is a curious and, yes, bored young boy. His 14- year-old sister, Gretel (Amber Beatty) is pre-occupied by a young soldier so he finds ways to explore even though told to not go to the back of the property after seeing a farm from his window. His adventures take him to a strange camp and he meets eight year old Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) who lives on the other side of a barbwire fence. From their clandestine visits an odd kind of friendship grows, the son of a Nazi Commandant and a young Jewish prisoner.
The novel and screenplay were beautifully written and adapted by John Boyne. John is an acclaimed Youth fiction writer and this story is told from the perspective of a young German boy. The Holocaust through the eyes of a child.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas has an amazing cast from Bruno’s parents played by David Thewles and Vera Farmiga to the Jewish house servant brilliantly played by David Hayman.
We are living in interesting times. Between politics and Covid, it often feels like there is a barbwire fence separating us. We need to make a decision to not let that fence define us as a country. America is better than that! When Bruno and Shmuel met, they didn’t see a privileged boy or a boy with a shaved head and stripped pajamas, they saw friends, plain and simple.
May we always remember the atrocities that were perpetrated by a people, some with evil in their hearts and some with just blinders on their eyes. We have a valuable moral imperative to love one another in spite of our differences.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is just the reminder we all need. I encourage you to watch this beautifully written, poignant masterpiece of humanity reaching out for friendship in a lonely world.
As always, I invite your comments and your perspective—mine isn’t the only one that counts! Carolyn@carolynhastings.com
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