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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 09/18/2008 : 15:40:21
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I declare an interest in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas because I produced Mark Herman's first film - a really funny comedy short. Which I mention because he trained as a cartoonist and everyone at the Film School assumed he was going to concentrate on comedy.
This film proves his solid, even meticulous film-making style and the skills he keeps perfecting are suited to any genre he cares to tackle.
This one is largely set in the grounds of a loyal Nazi camp commendant, and it asks real questions about what people can do.
That Mark loves what film can do with visuals alone is evident in a couple of shots early on in this unpretentious and potent documentation of one of the most shameful of human endeavors.
Both shots are of Bruno, one of the two child heros. In one shot we see him sitting on a staircase, enclosed by the balusters. The shot makes us temporarily uneasy, yet we don't know why. We're as much a prisoner of the moment as Bruno. Yes, the shot's been used before by Hitchcock and by Jack Clayton in The Pumpkin Eater. But Mark makes it his own.
The other shot is similar in impact, showing the boy peering outside to a forbidden view, peering through the slats of a blind.
It's what he's fascinated by through those slats that provides the focus for the film. He can see a few buildings, quite rural, and in the yard people at work on what he's told is a farm. To Bruno it looks as though the people are wearing pyjamas.
And it is there at the farm, when he's learned to escape from the restrictions of his grand and souless house, it's there that he meets Shmuel. In the course of their growing relationship at the edge of the camp, separated by barbed wire, both boys eventually realize this is no farm, and discover what the horror of it actually is.
Mark keeps everything under the seemingly cold control that guided people's behaviour in those tragic and paranoid times. Which makes the moments of breaking through the repression so much more powerful.
This is a film for adults, though it's based on a book for children. As I say, I'm prejudiced, but I think it's a gem.
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ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 09/19/2008 : 07:50:17
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| I'm glad that this has been carefully done, since the book - I'm told - is amazing in its innocence. |
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Salopian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 09/23/2008 : 08:04:35
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Spoiler: I was shaking with silent sobs at the end of this, as I did not expect it at all. That seems naive, I know, but it does show that the sense of innocence and ordinariness is pervasive. Once it was happening, I hoped that there wouldn't be a cop-out and thankfully there wasn't.
I had my doubts early on, as Bruno is shown to be sceptical of all the Nazi pomp. I felt it would have been better to have him totally buying all of it before making a new friend began to change his mind. Alternatively, he could at least get the scepticism from his grandmother. As it is (though it's only to a small degree -- he still thinks his father is a hero and everything), it's a little too much like he's inherently good and therefore he magically knows that something not right is going on.
I thought that Shmuel was acted a little hokily, but Bruno was played very well and was also a great physical match for both his father and The Boys from Brazil. Like the latter, it seemed right for him to have very dark hair, just to underline to absurdity of Aryan philosophy.
Another thing I liked is that there are little touches of adults in the camp keeping the misery from the children as much as possible, as in Life Is Beautiful. Before seeing that recently, it had never occurred to me, but of course that is just what they would have done. (That said, Shmuel is getting a little old to be falling for it.) The parallel with things being distorted for Bruno's sake is nicely done.
Edit: I've just read a bit about the book. It's set at Auschwitz, unspecified in the film. I had wondered where it was since Poland was the most likely and Pavel is obviously an East European name but German seems to be Shmuel's first language. I guess Shmuel's damily have been transported from Germany.
Apparently, in the book Bruno has his hair shaved off for lice. That was a strange thing to omit from the film, especially as it would not have taken long to show. Maybe they found out that in the circumstances such a child would not have his head shaved?
Spoiler: The ending of the book is also rather more ambiguous than the film. While the film is possibly not quite explicit (at the time I thought it strange that his mother was grieving when she couldn't yet be sure what had happened), there's an extremely strong suggestion that Bruno's parents are too late. |
Edited by - Salopian on 09/23/2008 08:25:11 |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 09/23/2008 : 13:30:41
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
It's set at Auschwitz, unspecified in the film.
I haven't read the book, but I have been told that in the book the kids call it "out-with", and perhaps that's why they don't specify the camp's real name in the movie. They also referr to Hitler as something like the "fury" (which, considering how angry the guy always sounded in all his speeches, makes sense).
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Beanmimo 
"August review site"
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Posted - 09/23/2008 : 13:37:50
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Having read the book in one sitting I feel a direct comparison to the film is valid.
Despite a good script, atmopshere and well acted i found myself feeling a little empty as the credits rolled away.
maybe it was because I was expecting everything that happened to happen or maybe I didn't feel enough for the characters.
The impact of the book's narrative was far more than the same events in the film.
It lost something in translation for me.
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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
