Movie: The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

Coincidentally I've been watching a few Holocaust films lately. Actually, just this one and Valkyrie, but still.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is based off of the book by John Boyne and is about the Holocaust seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old German boy. He moves into a new house near the concentration camps because his dad is a soldier and needs to get "work done," and makes friends with a Jewish kid at the camp while he's out exploring. The family gets a tutor to teach them about why the things that are happening are happening, and the protagonist is torn between what the adults tell him about the Jews and what he sees.

The movie was excellent. It's a really, really sad story and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody unprepared to cry. For me, reading about the Holocaust and the concentration camps in text books did have an impact, but that was it. I read it that one time and had the tests on it; not like I went home and cried myself to sleep. Sure it made me sick, but textbooks make you look at these things critically, and so all I thought was Hitler did look quite appealing to the Germans at the time given their shitty situation, and having someone to blame it on didn't sound bad either. Taking the field trips to the Holocaust Museum (I don't know if it was called that) had a bit more impact, we had a lot more pictures and it was more interactive. Our school had a Holocaust survivor speaker about twice, and those just scared the shit out of me. Gah, we read a book too, can't remember the title.

This movie was really something though, it caught my attention from the title (isn't that such a cool title?). They started off the movie with a quote I thought was interesting so I'm gonna go ahead and post it here.

Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.

-John Betjeman

Isn't that so true? God, what a cool quote. I know everything I did as a child had no reasoning behind it whatsoever. I don't know who the hell you are John, but great job on that! :)

Oh yes, the movie. Watch it.

+/- Trailer