The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
posted November 6, 2008 6:16 PM
A child's first lesson in aesthetic malpractice...
At first blush, this powerful Holocaust film—based on the young-adult fable by Irish writer John Boyne—seems to be the opposite of a bland message movie. On reflection, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is morally anodyne and superficially provocative, raising not-so-weighty questions about the limits of manipulation in narrative cinema. In sum, it doesn’t earn its tragic conclusion and fails to convince that the natural state of innocence supposedly enjoyed by children is a reliable bulwark against atrocity. According to the movie’s own logic, children don’t need to see it since the majority of them have not yet learned to be prejudiced. Just to be safe, keep them away. There’s a distinct possibility it could be their first lesson in how to commit aesthetic malpractice, if not a hate crime. Screening the film for adults in corners of the world where ethnic cleansing is currently going on (sadly, there are many) could benefit millions. The movie's actual box office performance will benefit from the book's popularity and yet those unfamiliar with the bestseller may be put off by the Holocaust theme.
Set near a Nazi concentration camp in the early 1940s, the movie centers on an eight-year-old German lad named Bruno (Asa Butterfield), who relocates from Berlin with his family—including his older sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) and mother (Vera Farmiga)—so his father (David Thewlis) can take up his new post as camp commandant. Bruno is told that his father will be overseeing a farm, but he detects some puzzling incongruities with this cover story meant to shield him from ugly truths. Certain parts of the estate they occupy—located a short distance from the camp—are off limits. Bored and desperately seeking playmates, Bruno can’t resist exploring and one day finds himself standing outside the camp fence, befriending the titular boy Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) whom he spots behind the barbed wire.
Thanks to a Teutonic tutor and their father’s aid Lieutenant Kotler (Rupert Friend)—an Aryan from Central Casting—Gretel becomes enamored of Nazi ideology. As his relationship with Shmuel develops, Bruno’s sympathy for his pal approaches a highly symbolic level. When the Jewish boy’s father goes missing, Bruno volunteers to don inmate attire and enter the camp to help Shmuel look for him.
Without being too graphic, the movie’s harrowing conclusion packs an emotional wallop. How could it not? Mark Herman’s heavy-handed direction up to that point is much more problematic; the storybook idiom is painted on in distractingly thick layers that serve to distance the viewer. There’s a vague sense of otherworldliness and unreality that makes the harshness to come feel jarringly contrived and immutable at the same time. The actors’ British accents heighten suspicions about the artificiality of this handsome, glossy production shot in Hungary.
Bruno’s naiveté and insulation from the horrors of the camp are plausible only up to a point. That said, the general objection that the story is too incredible can be turned around and used to defend the movie by linking it to a common reaction to the Holocaust and crimes against humanity of a similar magnitude. To wit: “How could the German people perpetrate such unthinkable evil?” and “How could the rest of the world not have known about the ‘Final Solution’ or, worse, how could they know and still allow it to happen?”
What strikes me as entirely bogus is the notion, expressed in the movie’s taglines, that this narrative can be interpreted as hopeful or positive. Bruno is an exemplar of ignorance more than innocence. His actions can’t be construed as a model of sacrifice because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. They could if he was aware of the purpose of the camp or fully cognizant of anti-Semitism and/or the Nazi views on racial purity. Not being weighed down by prejudice doesn’t by itself make him a savior figure or make his unstained soul automatically redemptive.
For The Boy in the Striped Pajamas to be more than a perversely comforting and practically meaningless parable, for it to function like classical tragedy in other words, the pain the viewer feels must lead to deeper understanding. The proposition “Killing people because of their ethnicity or religious beliefs is wrong” may qualify as such a piece of foundational wisdom, as the stuff of an Aristotelian moment of clarification. But bludgeoning your audience in order to convey it runs the risk of appallingly bad taste.
Distributor: Miramax
Cast: Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga, Amber Beattie, Rupert Friend, Richard Johnson, Sheila Hancock, David Hayman and Jim Norton
Director/Screenwriter: Mark Herman
Producer: David Heyman
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13 for some mature thematic material involving the Holocaust.
Running time: 93 min.
Release date: November 7 ltd.
29 Comments
Leave a comment
Anonymous said:
Thanks for sharing the ending, Mr. MaCarthy. One would think a reviewer would give his readers the courtesy of a "Spoiler Alert" even if he doesn't care for the movie.
November 22, 2008 10:19 AM
Brandon said:
What the **** is wrong with you?
Thanks for telling the ending you douche.
November 22, 2008 7:41 PM
Tony said:
What an effete snob you are....your tacky comments about Bruno's "ignorance" rather than "innocence" is so off the track. You evidently have lost any ability to see beyond your own smug and cynical view of history...maybe you should open your eyes and read a little history...and try putting yourself into the mind of an 8 year old kid instead of commenting on his eyes and their impact on the film. Then you give the end away...how did you get your job? You're pathetic and a lousy reviewer. Have a nice day...you need it.
November 22, 2008 11:34 PM
Anonymous said:
Great. Now I know how the movie ends. I'll NEVER read another review by you. IDIOT!
November 23, 2008 7:37 AM
Cyborg Killer said:
Thanks for the spoiler, I was going to see this movie, now thanks to your spoiler I'll pass. May I never read another of your garrulous, pompous AND WOEFULLY UNIMPRESSIVE reviews without a spoiler alert! How in the world did your editor let this happen...? Shoddy work.
November 23, 2008 3:42 PM
Anonymous said:
HOW COULD YOU GIVE SUCH A POWERFUL AND IMPORTANT ENDING AWAY??!!
I'M NEVER READING ONE OF YOUR REVIEWS AGAIN!
November 23, 2008 8:46 PM
Anonymous said:
Heavy, high-minded without cause, and unable to see the merits of a simply powerful narrative?
We do not need your point of view in out world, sir, or your spoilers.
I hope moviegoers do not read this review, so that the ending is not spoiled and so that the can appreciate a work of art without the taint of your elitist mumblings.
November 23, 2008 8:55 PM
Dave W. said:
I read the book and knew how it would end and it still was a knockout. Well worth seeing this film and take your friends!
It's one of those movies where in the end everyone in the theater just sit there stunned and watch the credits roll by.
November 24, 2008 7:24 AM
L said:
Your review may as well have come with popcorn. Thanks for spoiling it!!!
November 24, 2008 9:43 AM
Lep said:
Douchebag!
November 24, 2008 11:28 AM
Nobody Special said:
Maybe you read too much into the taglines, dude. Maybe they were just imposed on the film by some suits or something. 'Cos I get what you're saying about Bruno not being a savior and his death being as pointless as everyone else's--it's just that I thought that was the point. The only purpose his death serves is to give his father what he deserves, and his father won't learn from it. After seeing the film I thought I had seen a--what did you call it--"practically meaningless parable" (after all how can one begin to make sense out of something as senseless as the Holocaust), but that was all I wanted. I don't need another classical tragedy today, thanks.
And I both read the book and saw the movie before reading your review, but still, in this spoiler-savvy era, you showed surprising disregard for your readers by carelessly blasting out the ending. If you thought it was a public service, please stop serving.
November 24, 2008 2:58 PM
Anonymous said:
I've read reviews on this website before and found them useful, but the next time I see the byline "John P. McCarthy," I'm not reading it.
Mr. McCarthy, even bad writers know that only a twit would incorporate a spoiler into a review without warning.
I do pity the fact that you must have been desperate for comments. If you were forced to resort to this stupidity to claim that of your reviews was "popular" online, you're probably due to get laid off soon anyway to I don't have to waste any time or energy getting combative.
Tool.
November 25, 2008 2:18 PM
Disappointed said:
To the administrators of BoxOffice.com:
Please take this review off of your website: I'm very disappointed that I now know what would've been a terrifically impacting end to this movie. At the very least, post a spoiler alert at the top of the page.
Subsequently, dear administrators, please fire this reviewer. As long as this review remains here, the integrity of your website is in peril.
November 25, 2008 3:24 PM
KCS said:
Mr. McCarthy, do you also tell loved ones what you gave them for a Christmas present before they've completely unwrapped it? Perhaps you spout the punchline of a joke just before the person who is telling the joke gets to it? There must be a name for this type of psychosis...
November 25, 2008 3:26 PM
Anonymous said:
I was really eager to see this movie. My Grandfather was a POW in WWII and eventually a liberator of the death camps. I have always found movies about the war interesting. I read several reviews and wanted to read one that balanced out the many good ones I read with one not so favorable. I read yours and couldn't have been more disappointed. None of the many reviews I read crossed so fundmamental a line as the one you blew right by--giving away the ending. The only people I know who take pleasure in doing this kind of thing to others aren't people who are generally liked by others. I am sad that the blogs weren't above your review--I definitely would have skipped it had I known you gave away the ending. I will avoid the website you work for, avoid your reviews and go and see the movie anyway. I will just make sure I don't spoil it for anyone else.
November 25, 2008 5:35 PM
Anonymous said:
I was really eager to see this movie. My Grandfather was a POW in WWII and eventually a liberator of the death camps. I have always found movies about the war interesting. I read several reviews and wanted to read one that balanced out the many good ones I read with one not so favorable. I read yours and couldn't have been more disappointed. None of the many reviews I read crossed so fundamental a line as the one you blew right by--giving away the ending. The only people I know who take pleasure in doing this kind of thing to others aren't people who are generally liked by others. I am sad that the blogs weren't above your review--I definitely would have skipped it had I known you gave away the ending. I will avoid the website you work for, avoid your reviews and go and see the movie anyway. I will just make sure I don't spoil it for anyone else.
November 25, 2008 5:36 PM
Anonymous said:
I was really eager to see this movie. My Grandfather was a POW in WWII and eventually a liberator of the death camps. I have always found movies about the war interesting. I read several reviews and wanted to read one that balanced out the many good ones I read with one not so favorable. I read yours and couldn't have been more disappointed. None of the many reviews I read crossed so fundamental a line as the one you blew right by--giving away the ending. The only people I know who take pleasure in doing this kind of thing to others aren't people who are generally liked by others. I am sad that the blogs weren't above your review--I definitely would have skipped it had I known you gave away the ending. I will avoid the website you work for, avoid your reviews and go and see the movie anyway. I will just make sure I don't spoil it for anyone else.
November 25, 2008 5:37 PM
Anonymous said:
To KCS:
There is a term for this type of Psychosis. It is call antisocial disorder. Google it.
November 25, 2008 5:42 PM
Annonymous said:
You're stupid. Way to ruin the movie jerk. Wherever you got the idea that the boy dying isn't any more significant than the rest of the victims is beyond me. Obviously if the movie is about the boy, they are going to make his death seem more significant, it's a given.
November 25, 2008 6:54 PM
Philosophe_rouge said:
We haven't met, but I love you :p
November 26, 2008 12:25 AM
Phil Contrino said:
Editor's Note: I offer up my sincere apology to anybody who read this review before seeing the film. The spoilers in the review have now been deleted.
John P. McCarthy has written hundreds of excellent film reviews for BOXOFFICE over the course of many years and he should have known better than to put spoilers in this review without any warning. This mistake should have been caught before we published the review. It will not happen again.
November 26, 2008 5:54 AM
E. Watson Grade 8 Teacher said:
My class has just finished reading this book. They will see the film as soon as it is being played locally. I had a class in tears at the end of the story. Is there not a better way of engaging children in the pursuit of reading than to have them read first and then view the movie? Is there not a better social education than having them read about, then view, an accounting of an historical event that has molded their own world?? This is true education. Clearly, Mr. McCarthy should have read the book, prior to viewing the film, and most definitely, prior to writing his review. I have not yet seen the film. I have read the book now - three times, twice with different grade 8 classes. It is remarkable. It is a gruesome portrait of our past....and if this film reviewer had read the story, he would remember the last paragraphs in the story...... "Of course this took place years ago...Fences like this don't exist anymore...." The message is overpowering. How can anyone NOT value such an educational film? Mr.McCarthy's review has so little merit that I can not wait to have my students read it and respond, after they have seen the film. They will do a much better job than I am doing here, or than he did in his review. In my opinion he is shallow and simply "just doesn't get it". Anyone who does, would NEVER give away such a provocative ending.
November 26, 2008 6:36 PM
don said:
great review. insightful and appropriately critical. Just ignore the cast of naybobs who appear to have no other use for "movies" except to be entertained ("don't ruin the ending! don't ruin the ending"). History is not a bourgeois vacation.
November 27, 2008 5:38 AM
MJ said:
The spoiler may have been removed,but the outraged and specific comments about the spoiler do the same damage. This is clearly a movie worth seeing, and reading the book first is a point well taken, even though most won't bother-so... stop the madness and delete the comments that reveal too much.
November 28, 2008 2:34 PM
Anonymous said:
WOW am i glad i looked at the comments before i read the review....
December 1, 2008 4:27 PM
your daddy said:
I think the review was great and was exactally what I was looking for.
December 13, 2008 1:48 PM
twozillas said:
OH MY GAAAAUD! What an idiot!
December 13, 2008 9:28 PM
NZ Girl said:
I agree with Don above. People, you have to look a little deeper! That's what reviews are about. Sorry that the review - and more so the comments, now that the review has been edited - has spoiled it for many of you. I read the book and I am really interested to see how the story is played out on screen. Personally, i find the more critical reviews more valuable than the gushing eulogies.
January 3, 2009 12:54 AM
Susan said:
So then when will the movie be released? I have seen the trailer and read the book. What about it?
January 5, 2009 11:17 AM