from the November 7, 2008
edition
In "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," the unspeakable atrocities
of the Holocaust are glimpsed through the eyes of a 9-year-old boy,
and somehow this makes them seem even more unspeakable. Bruno (the
marvelous young actor Asa Butterfield) is the son of a high-ranking
Nazi officer, Ralf (David Thewlis), who moves his family from
Berlin to a remote countryside home that is walled off from a
"farm" in the far distance. In fact, what is being walled out is a
concentration camp, with Ralf acting as its commandant.
Bruno's mother Elsa (Vera Farmiga) is kept in the dark for a
long time about her husband's murderous duties. When she learns,
she snaps. Not so scrupulous is Bruno's elder sister Gretel (Amber
Beattie), who is enamored of a sadistic young Nazi lieutenant
(Rupert Friend) and adorns her bedroom walls with Hitler Youth
posters. Isolated and uncomprehending, without pals to play with,
Bruno is bored stiff. One day, although forbidden to do so, he
ventures beyond the wall. Running up against the barbed-wired camp
enclosure, he befriends a Jewish boy his own age, Shmuel (Jack
Scanlon).
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Bruno's innocence, like Shmuel's, prevents him from perceiving
the enormity of the horror. He wonders why Shmuel can't leave the
"farm" and play. Scruffy and starving, Shmuel replies
matter-of-factly that he can't because he's a Jew.
It took me a while to adjust to the mostly British-sounding cast
standing in for Germans, but at least it's a time-worn convention.
Writer-director Mark Herman, adapting the novel by John Boyne, is
careful to stage the film almost entirely from Bruno's point of
view. This makes for a far creepier experience than if the story
had been told straight. It's as if we are watching the ritualistic
sacrifice of an innocent.
Bruno is the darling of his family and his father is quite
tender with him. The audacity of "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas"
lies precisely in Herman's decision to portray Ralf as a loving
father. Thewlis's performance is so layered that we can believe
this man is capable of a monstrousness equal to his familial
devotion. And yet the great conundrum of the Holocaust is that it
was perpetrated by human beings, not monsters. Few movies have
rendered this puzzle so powerfully. Grade: A (Rated PG-13 for some
mature thematic material involving the Holocaust.)
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