The boy in the striped Pyjamas Review

The boy in the striped Pyjamas is a film by Mark Herman and based off a book of the same name. It follows Bruno a boy growing up in 1940s Germany during the height of the war. Bruno’s father is a high ranking member of the armed forces and is moved to oversee a concentration camp.

The story is told from Bruno’s perspective and it is clear to see that the focus Is that on the child like ignorance of it all as it is made clear that Bruno does not understand that the place that his father runs is a concentration camp. He begins the film referring to it as “The Farm” and often asks his mother to go play at the “Children at the Farm”. The mother also for a large part of the film is unaware that it is in fact a Concentration camp and once she learns of this she would begin to unravel once she learns from a Guard that they are burning the Jewish people inside.

The story is clever in the it’s shooting as once Bruno meets Shmuel he questions him why he is in Pyjamas and tells him that he should come over for tea. Bruno seems to think that it is in fact a holiday camp. Bruno and his sisters get a tutor who pushes a strong agenda of anti-Semitism but this only brings more questions to the confused Bruno who is unsure what to think.

Over all the film is clever, as it does a good job of telling some serious subject matter but present it in a way as a child might understand. It is a powerful film, meant to invoke emotions in the audience. But overall I felt there was too little focus on the Jewish prisoners in the camp and I would have rather they focused more on the plight of the prisoners and less on the breaking of the family as they did not do a good job of it and in the end they expect us to be heartbroken for the characters, but bar the obvious circumstances which help it the character development was not enough for me to care feel all that bad about it.