Film has flaws, but horror is real

Sickening and powerful, more so for its subject matter than any artfulness, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” should definitely not be seen by children, even though it is based on the John Boyne novel that purports to be a “fable” as seen through a child’s eyes. Although rated PG-13, it concerns horrors of the Holocaust that should be exposed only to adults. 

The drama is of two 8-year-old boys, one the son of a Nazi concentration camp commander and the other a Jewish boy held prisoner there. Bruno, the German lad, thinks that the fenced-in property near his home is some type of “farm,” but he wonders why all the “farmers” are dressed in striped pajamas. Naivete among both adults and children is played to the hilt in this screenplay, and many moments stretch credulity.

While you will leave this film affected by the power of its wrenching tragedy, you may well also feel a bit manipulated. Are we to believe that Bruno’s mother also knew nothing of the “camps” and of the deaths that fueled the smoke that comes from the chimneys? Can we believe that security at the camps was so lax as to allow the daily meeting of the two boys who talk from opposite sides of the barbed wire fencing? Are we to believe that an 8-year-old could so easily, and casually, dig under the fence?

Of course, the movie’s tracks are covered to some extent by the fact that the debate in the adult world continues even today over who knew what and when. This, perhaps, lets the movie’s overly simplified script off the hook.

David Thewlis plays the Nazi commander, a man who seemingly is reluctant about the orders he is given. He is forced to move his family from Berlin to the countryside to run a death camp for Jews – and is sworn to tell no one about it, not even his wife. He supervises a propaganda film that pictures the camp as a recreational haven.

Vera Farmiga plays the wife and mother who is shocked when she stumbles upon the truth. (Had she been living in isolation all her life? Did she know nothing about the rise of the Nazi party and the proposed “final solution”?) Farmiga is casually anti-Semitic early in the film, commenting that “one of them” is in the kitchen. Her sudden burst of moral shock, conveniently, allows her several overly dramatic tirades at her husband.

No great find, either, is the child actor Asa Butterfield, who plays Bruno as a rather precious Little Lord Fauntleroy type who dreams only of “adventure” books and knows nothing of the world in which his parents live. Some will defend the script’s holes by noting that this is a childhood fable not to be taken literally. When dealing with the horror of this part of history, facts should not be discarded in favor of fables.

The film is badly directed by Mark Herman, whom we know mainly for the little film called “Little Voice” (1998), based on a play and seen by few. His pacing here is so persistently slow that we are given more than enough time to question motivations.

Most impressive as a screen presence is young Jack Scanlon, who plays Shmuel, the remarkably resilient and vulnerable Jewish boy – a boy with hope in spite of his situation. He is so trusting that he even forgives a boyish betrayal  by Bruno. Our heart goes out to him. Centering the film more on the childhood fantasies and differences of these two boys could have produced a superior result, not one that merely uses the tragedy of its subject.   

The boys’ innocence and loss of innocence are heart-wrenching when separated from the horrors concocted by the adults of the world.

The dogged pacing leaves the audience often waiting for the film to catch up. It is highly predictable until that last 30 minutes, when you literally want to stop the film. The power and the tragedy of the real world are shattering in those final moments. The manipulations that occur earlier are somewhat erased.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com