Posted by
Billy email MADBillyD@aol.com on Monday, November 24, 2008 11:22:05 AM
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" adds to the canon of movies about the Holocaust by telling its tale from the viewpoint of an 8-year-old boy.
Based on the novel by John Boyne, it's incredibly moving and poignant — and superbly acted.
Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is the young boy, playing war with his young friends in Berlin at the movie's opening. But change is in the wind. His father, an SS officer, has been posted to a new job in the country. Grandmother doesn't approve, but Bruno, his parents and his 12-year-old sister, Gretl, are moving.
Adults will surmise quickly what Bruno cannot. His father (David Thewlis) has been named commandant of a concentration camp, which he tells his son is like a farm. Bruno can just glimpse the camp from a window of the family's new home, and he thinks it strange the farmers all wear striped pajamas.
They're not really people at all, his father tells him.
(The above is part of a movie review from my local paper. I have yet to attend this movie but I am hoping to do that this week. If you would like to read more of the above review click here
or listen to an Audio Review by Michael Medved.)
