‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas’: Lessons Too Important to Ignore
by Pam MeisterThe film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is just out on DVD this week, and I confess I was eagerly anticipating its release, having missed its run in theaters. I rented it and watched it Wednesday evening.
Based on the children’s novel of the same name by John Boyne, it tells the story of eight-year-old Bruno, whose father is a high-ranking Nazi. Dad is transferred from his post in Berlin to head a work (read: final solution) camp, and the family is uprooted to the countryside. Bored out of his skull after a few weeks of little to do and no one to play with but his older sister, Bruno defies his mother’s orders to stay in the front yard and sneaks out back to explore. He comes upon the camp, which he thinks is a farm (Bruno is sheltered from the realities of his father’s work) and meets Shmuel, a boy his age on the other side of the fence, wearing what Bruno thinks are “striped pajamas.” Despite being separated by electrified barbed wire, the two boys strike up a friendship that holds fast despite the obvious adversity and future problems that arise.
I hesitate to tell too much for those who have not seen the film or read the book, but suffice it to say it is very moving and a poignant reminder that children do not automatically inherit the prejudices of their parents – those prejudices must be taught. All I’ll say here is that if you do watch it, have a box of tissues handy.
Amazingly, Harvey Weinstein of Miramax Films felt compelled to defend the “glut” of Holocaust movies that were released at the end of 2008. Critics complained that the topic was too “gloomy” for the festive season. (What season is this, I wonder? It couldn’t be the Christmas season, because we don’t talk about that. Must be the Holiday season I hear so much about.) Why on earth should he have to defend these films? No one feels the need to defend the glut of slasher and teen smut films on the market, which have little or no cultural value.
In light of the increase of anti-Semitism around the world, combined with a lack of knowledge about what really happened during World War II, I think it’s important that films like this are made – yes, even films targeted at children. Our president has suggested that kindergartners be taught about sex in an “age appropriate” manner. If children that young are old enough to learn about sex, surely those who are a little older can learn about a human catastrophe that, heaven forbid, could happen again if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his ilk have their way?
A recent survey in Britain of more than 1,000 schoolchildren aged 11-16 about the death camp Auschwitz revealed that: a quarter still did not know its purpose.
Of those, about 10% were not sure what it was, 8% thought it was a country bordering Germany, 2% thought it was a beer, the same proportion said it was a religious festival and a further 1% said it was a type of bread.
Perhaps this isn’t surprising, considering some schools in that nation are dropping Holocaust studies because they’re afraid of “offending” Muslim students. Yes, the same nation that wouldn’t allow Geert Wilders in because his film Fitna, according to Foreign Secretary David Miliband, contains ”extreme anti-Muslim hate and we have very clear laws in this country.”
Meanwhile, anti-Semitism and attacks on Jews in the UK are on the rise. Wonder what Miliband thinks about that?
Another question I have is why The Boy in the Striped Pajamas didn’t get any attention here during the Golden Globe and Academy Awards blitz? Great acting, fabulous costumes, great screenplay. I don’t claim to know anything about the nomination process, but I’m guessing that a film about the horrors of Jewish genocide might make too many people uncomfortable.
No, better to keep releasing films that make our troops look bad - although that might stop now that Obama the Magnificent has “inherited” Iraq and Afghanistan. Big Hollywood’s John Scott Lewinski notes that “since a Democrat is president and it’s safe for Hollywood to support America’s wars again, there’s reason to hope for such a comeback” of heroes in American films.
In the meantime, I suggest you watch The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and if you have children, have them watch it with you. It contains a lesson that none of us can afford to forget.
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23 Comments
I enjoyed the movie although the critics decried all The British accents that the "Germans" had – of course that to me was rubbish – the acting transcended the accents. Which makes me wonder if a cheesy German accent for a non-German speaker automatically makes a "better" movie – just saw Robert Vaughn in Bridge to Remagen
I haven't seen the film, but if you want to know how far Rogert Ebert has gone off the realm of reality, do a google search on his written review of Boy in the Stripped PJ's, assuming it is still available and unaltered. In writing his review, he makes a sudden veer off course, and Ebert compares the Nazi's during WWII with the executives of Enron of our time. Near the end of his article making a like-kind comparison of the "murderers of 6M+ people" to "greedy executives who broke the law" , he makes a disclaimer that he did not in fact make that comparison. Thank you, Roger, for showing us what a complete dip**** you are.
Didn't Kate Winslet win an Oscar for The Reader, which also concerned the Holocaust? I don't think that the Holocaust is the reason why this movie didn't win the major awards.
anyway…I have yet to see the boy in the striped pajamas but I hear its good…it's just one of those films you have to be in the mood for (and yet I recently watched 'the Wrestler' which was as depressing a POS as could be)
The Holocaust took a back seat (waaay in the back, actually) to the relationship featured in the film. Her having been a guard at a death camp was just incidental to the overall story. She could have committed any other random crime and it wouldn't have changed the story at all.
I just saw this a few weeks ago, and it was incredibly powerful. My only quibble was the extremely abrupt ending – there was no denoument whatsoever. I was half expecting to see a 'to be continued' as though watching a mini-series on TV.
That said, it was a brilliant film. David Thewlis was amazing (he usually is – even in his watered down role in the Potter films), but the little boy playing Shmuel broke my heart more times than I could count. He haunted me for days afterward.
This movie seems to understand the holocaust for the horror that it was whereas Th Reader was more interested in dumbing it down and use moral relativism to say the Nazi death guards were normal people. That's why Hollywood and Oscars liked The Reader while ignoring movies like this one and Defiance.
I'm with you. Coming from a German family which spoke very guttural German on one side, and crisp Berlin German on the other, I'm bothered by people being bothered. Germans spoke, well, German. So if we're not going to get subtitles, who cares what the English-language accent is? So long as they're wearing those cool Hugo Boss uniforms, you'll always be able to tell who the Nazis and other bad guys are. How come the worst mass murderers have the best uniforms?
The Rifftrax ad embedded in your story had me confused for a moment ('an article about a holocaust movie and….Mike Nelson from MST3K riffing on Star Wars?")
"The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" didn't have a star who has nice pictorial sex with a boy. Kete Winslet, pedophilia, sex. Now I understand why it got all the awards and "Pyjamas" didn't. Oh yeah, and there was the holocaust.
Years ago our English teachers asked to class to as individuals see the then current movie, Ben Hur. She pointed out to us that the "good guys" had American accents but that the "bad guys" tended (nothing is absolute) to have upper class British accents.
Thus, even if the movie is about folks (including Jews) speaking German, it may be more effective to not use German (or even "Jewish") accents but pick other accents to help separate the "black hats" from the "white hats."
I was watching Bridge to Remagen the other day and thought Robert Vaughn a bit comical for wearing Ray Ban dark glasses and speaking in a cheesy German accent, all trying to portray a Wehrmacht major. I think the best way languages was handles was Patton, where the Germans spoke, well, German with English subtitles.
But a good actor should transcend language – nobody playing Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar speaks Latin, fer cryin' out loud.
So I vote for no cheesy foreign accents…
"Patton" was exactly the subtitled movie I had in mind. And you're right about "Julius Caesar" too. If they did do it in Latin, the good guys would speak ecclesiastical Latin and the bad guys would speak classical Latin. "Vainy, veedy, veechy" versus "wainy, weedy, weeky." It's just silly, since "the play's the thing." The accents overshadow the play when they're cheesy. Of course, I'm not sure that Robert Vaughn has an accent that isn't cheesy. So I'm with you. Original language, subtitles or genuine accents. Can the cheese.
Now, about those uniforms . . . .
I saw this movie during Christmas vacation. It was excellent. Rent it or buy it. I was really impressed with the child actors; I am pretty picky when it come to acting but I saw no flaws. This move is one that will engross both adults and children alike (of course, read a more in depth review before you decide whether your child is old enough to handle the topic).
As I was walking my dog this morning (where so many thoughts seem to come) it occurred to me that insisting on "foreign accents" is the lazy actor's (or director's) way of conceding that one's acting ability alone in the part isn't enough to bring the audience to the part.
Excellent summation. It made me think of the old Hollywood legend of Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier on the set of "Marathon Man." Hoffman was doing his usual mumbling about his "motivation." Olivier finally got exasperated, and said "have you ever considered just acting?" Of course I'm not so sure that Olivier's German accent was that all-fired good, but his acting sure as hell was. I guess what I'm saying in agreement with you is that Olivier's labored German accent didn't overshadow the fact that he was still a great actor. Cheesy accents make a bad actor worse.
This is off topic a little but needs to be posted somewhere and I don't have my own blog. I was flipping through a catalog last night that is put out by a company that offers lectures by prominent college professors on various topics. In the catalog was a course on recent Middle Eastern Iranian history. With reference to the Hostage Crisis, here is verbatim what the professor wrote: "…Carter spends his final weeks as president working out a deal with Iran. In exchange for the hostages, the US turns over $8 billion in Iranian assets frozen in American banks and pledges not to interfere in Iran's internal affairs."
NOT A WORD ABOUT RONALD REAGAN and that the hostages were RELEASED on the day Reagan took office!
So far as Reagan goes, this same timeline reads: "In 1985, President Reagan's National Security Council agrees to sell arms to Iran in exchange for release of American hostages in Lebanon. Known as the Iran-Contra affair, the scandal causes public uproar when it comes to light in November of 1986 and tarnishes the president's reputation."
PUBLIC UPROAR? Media uproar is more like it. The mainstream press did its damnedest to make a big deal out of it and not much came of it except Oliver North became to their chagrin a hero to many.
If this stuff is what is being taught in our colleges, it is little wonder that the Holocaust is quickly being revised into the "never happened" category.
I was thinking that very few actors (besides Olivier) could make you believe he was Josef Mengele (no matter what they called the mad dentist) in Marathon Man and then make you believe he was Simon Wisenthal (Boys from Brazil) – Great Acting.
There was a quote attributed to Spencer Tracy that I cannot find – but he said something to the effect that "acting is the easiest thing to do – just don't let them catch you doing it".
I have heard that Dustin Hoffman is a PITA to work with on the set…
Years of watching biblical epics, various versions of Julius Caesar, and I, Claudius, have taught me that the Romans spoke with British accents. : ) Actually, I've seen it noted that in Spartacus, most of the Romans speak with British accents while the slaves are mostly played by Americans, which makes sense, since the Romans are the bad guys and the slaves are the good guys.
Yup, those two roles really show what a genius Olivier was when it came to acting.
He has had BDS for so long. He should just sit by a window and stare while filling his drool cup.
Thank you for posting this. I went out and got the book. Read it in two days. Wow! What a story. My homeschooled children will be reading it soon. Look forward to seeing the DVD.
Thanks again.
There IS a glut of holocuast films. Esp. every time the world gets fed up with Israel. Noticed how all this tripe coincided with Israel's attack on everything and everyone in Gaza, even the animals? Hello! Hollywood clearly thinks only jewish suffering matters.
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