The Boy In the Striped Pajamas

Movie Grade: B+

DVD Features Grade: A-

Overall Grade: A-

With the most recent DVDs that I have been covering, expectations were low for this one. After seeing the likes of The Women, Disaster Movie, and The Mummy 3 all in a row, anyone would have his doubts. I'm more than happy to say that I was way off. Breaking the trends of the past three DVD reviews, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas really brought a lot to the table for a variety of audiences.

This one takes us back to Nazi Germany, where eight-year old Bruno (Asa Butterfield) and his friends spend their days playing in the streets of Berlin, blissfully ignorant to the world around them. Bruno's fun seems to be brought to an end when his father Ralf (David Thewlis) is promoted in the army and their family has to move out to the country side. After finding himself bored in his new home, Bruno goes off and explores, despite not being allowed to leave the gates of his new home. Bruno eventually finds what he does not realize is a concentration camp Ralf is there to run. He begins to develop a relationship with a young Jewish boy named Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) on the other side of the fence.

The most captivating thing about this film is the childish sense of wonder that Bruno has that is able to pass its way to the audience. The opening shot is of a swastika, but the tone is completely different once we get sight of the boys playing in the streets of Berlin. This comes into play mostly when Bruno encounters Shmuel and doesn't understand that he is a prisoner. It is also transferable to Bruno's mother Elsa (Vera Farmiga) who is naive about the work her husband is there to do. This was apparently gathered through the journal entries and other historical sources that revealed that many of the families related to people in charge of the camps were unaware of the specific atrocities going on within them.

The featurette Friendship beyond the Fence was an interesting take on the behind the scenes of this film. It gave much more than the average behind the scenes look, letting us know about the research that they went through in creating the film and the work they did in transforming the novel into a film. It also gave the usual doses of director's opinions and cinematography and setting insight. There is nothing wrong with these things, of course; they just seem to be the only focus of any behind the scenes. It was refreshing to see one with a different approach.

The deleted scenes added to the list of surprises in this film in that they weren't completely pointless. Each one of them would have added a little something to the film if they were

left in, but didn't have a negative effect being absent. If you enjoy watching the film, it is definitely worth taking ten extra minutes to check them out. One in particular that should have been in the film was actually an alternative scene to when Bruno first spots the camp outside of his window. In this one, we get to see him and his sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) talk about her doll collection, which is brought up later and not explained unless you have seen this scene. The two children climb to Bruno's window and discus what they think the camp is and Gretel tells Bruno it is a farm, which explains why he refers to it as one the entire movie. It doesn't make any sense to have it the other way really, but again the film isn't any worse without it.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas manages to pull off quite a task in making a kid's tragedy. It is hard to think of any other movie that would fall into that category. They probably exist but don't have the same level of enjoyment to them that this one did. This accomplishes the ridiculous task of placing the Holocaust, one of the lowest events in human history, in a context that a child can understand. The whole film seems possible, and the ending will bring the same level of pain that someone could feel at the end of something like American History X. Of course the film isn't of the same caliber, but it does its job very well.

Movie Grade: B+

DVD Features Grade: A-

Overall Grade: A-