The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (Mark Herman/UK,USA/2008)
Poignant and innocent, it is not everyday that you see a film such as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas that pierces through the fundamental soul of your heart and move you in ways so bittersweet, unforgettable and unbelievable. Based on a book by an Irish novelist John Boyne, this beautiful picture teaches us that beyond the familiarity of ourselves there exist an unfamiliarity that needs to be tamed, understood, and be recognized as we recognize ourselves.
Bored and curious as a child, Bruno, explored the out-there of the new house they just moved in. He finds a boy name Shmuel and learns that he is not an ordinary boy behind a barbed fence. As he develops an amazing friendship, he also makes a mark of his gradual knowledge and ironically misunderstanding of their difference, that he is a German and that the boy in the striped pyjamas is an enemy, a Jew; and of his naïve confusion of what his father is fighting for, and he should also fight as a German. His father, Officer Ralf, convinced finally by his loving mother, Elsa, together with the whole family is about to move in a place farther than the evil smoke that is from the gas chambers of the camp. Bruno, before saying final goodbyes to Shmuel, goes inside the camp wearing a striped pair of pyjamas to look for Shmuel’s father but before they are able to do so, they find themselves deluded to the chamber with a copious other believing only a shower is about to happen. Noticing Bruno’s absence in a swing tied in a tree where he used to be at. The family, together with the soldiers under Officer Ralf makes a desperate attempt to follow Bruno’s path leading them to the camp that shocks each one of them. They try to get in, but as bad as their worst nightmare, everything now is just too late.
As much as I am delighted by films like Little Manhattan, The Kite Runner, Artificial Intelligence and a number of other films that looks at life in the uncorrupted eyes of children, I am purified by the film’s perpetualiy of its point of view. Bruno’s scenes with Shmuel playing, talking and sharing food together is very emotionally riveting. The composition—the clean early 20th century European clothes of Bruno against the worn-out and filthy striped pyjamas of Shmuel, the clean and scarless face of a German boy against the wounded and troubled face of a Jewish son, the toys and the food that Bruno brings against the wheelbarrow of Shmuel, and the barbed fence that divides the both of them—is one of the strongest, most touching and well-contrasted scene I’ve ever seen on screen. In these scenes I see the rigidity of the social structures which is very strong in the house of the family, being critically attacked. Yes, I can see the physical superiority that is sewed with other economic, social, and political aspects but between the innocence of the two boys, I see a marvelous and a brilliant brotherhood—a brotherhood that seems to be obsolete and useless in the world of the adults, in the world of power, and in the world that is soon to be theirs.
The only thing I wish to change in the film is its cinematography. I remember this parallel issue I encountered watching Marc Foster’s The Kite Runner. I think the cinematography of the film is a little candy-ish, with that, I mean that the colors/visuals of The Kite Runner are too colorful, very catering to kids when it talks about giant issues such as the Talibans and modern world repression, though the rest of the film is of course awesome as Marc Foster could be. This also concerns me with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, a more mature and competitive cinematography can absolutely put the film in places where films like Oliver Twist and Finding Neverland have been to.
A film very heartwarming and touching, this film will make you realize what a child is, and how adorable it is to always be a child. People who are searching for the hiding fountain of humanity will be surprised to find it in a German boy who has a friend in a striped pyjamas
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