Friendship With No Race

We have seen so many movies about World War II, about Hitler, Anne Frank, the Nazi’s and so many wonderful but sad stories about Jews during that time, but no other movie could let us know better how everything happened like The Boy in Stripped Pajamas (2008), based on the book of the same name from the author John Boyne.

Bruno (Asa Butterfield) was a happy 8 year old boy with a big imagination and an adventurous spirit; he had a sister, a loving mother and his own hero which he had called dad. His father, an SS Commander, was now being re-located to the countryside to take command of a concentration camp. As it was expected, Bruno and his sister were not pleased to moved out and let all of their friends behind, but they understand that this step would be important for the good of their country.

As the family started to unpacked and getting used to their new home, Bruno discovers from his window what it looked like a farm but with strange people that would only used pajamas all day long. Not being allowed to go to the back side of his house Bruno got really bored and gotten the news that school was coming home instead of going to school was even worse. Few days had past and Bruno saw the opportunity to go and explore beyond his back yard. Bruno gets amazed by the forest and soon he finds himself with the farm he had seen from his window, he sees a boy who later discovers his name was Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a Jewish boy with his same age. The movie then develops on how the innocent eyes of two boys had seen the most horrible era the world had.

The plot of the movie develops smoothly, as it doesn’t have any sub plots, characters or any fictional feature, people will soon get the point of what the movie is about and will soon grab the people’s attention.  The scenario can help you project whenever the character is happy, worry, sad, etc, as it can easily change from warm gold days to cold and gray. The simple cuts and edits that this movie has, makes it feel more natural, like if we were following Bruno’s steps in his adventure.  The most important thing that makes this movie very remarkable is that even though it is expected to talk and/or have many scenes about Nazi’s, you barely hear, see or even know what’s going on with  the Nazi’s (historically talking). Knowing that this movie is related with the Nazi’s you will expect to see or hear about Hitler in one moment of the movie but nothing is ever mention about him, except watching that condolence card he sends to Bruno’s family when his grandmother dies.

Another very important “character” that this movie has is the music itself. The music in The Boy in Stripped Pajamas can be seen as non-digested, but is the movie itself that bring the audience with more tension or relief, depending on the situation the character is facing. For example the last scene, when Bruno and Shmuel are running around the concentration camp the music gets really dramatic and fast, which gets you in a scene of eager to know what’s going to happened next.

The characters are well done and almost exact like in the book, the development that each one has throughout the movie is well define and fast. Take for example Gretel (Amber Beattie), Bruno’s sister, in the first minutes of the movie (or rather while still living on the old house)we see her like a normal 10 year old girl that plays and takes care of her dolls, but after a time living in the new house she starts to realize how important her father job really is, and thanks to a couple of people, her tutor and one of his dad’s soldiers, she became to take a whole interest in the Nazi party and the war itself, leaving her childhood behind. There a scene in the movie were Bruno had just find out all of her sister’s dolls in the basement, worried about he just saw he runs up to Gretel’s room and tell her that why were her dolls in the basement, which Gretel just answers “Dolls, are for little girls” while she was hanging out a Nazi poster on one of the walls of her room. There’s also a kind of irony on Bruno’s mother (Vera Farminga) since she doesn’t know exactly what her husband job is, what does the Nazi party really means and what the war is all about, but as soon as she found out we see a big change with the relation she has with her husband.

Although they are not about the same topic, and both historical events are 100 years apart from each other, I think we can compare this movie to the Titanic (1997). They both talk about important historical events and they both have tragic endings. The important difference we can see in both movies is that the Titanic had recognizable actors as the leading characters and a song that everyone can recognize as part of the movie. But the major difference that I can think and that makes The Boy in Stripped Pajamas better, is that this movie doesn’t centralizes in the typical love story, it doesn’t have the action that we see on the Titanic and thus is talking about a historical event that we have read, hear and seen about it so many times like the Titanic, we really don’t know what the ending of the movie exactly will be.

As the movie was about to end some tears started to came out of my eyes, the last scene, coming from a close up of a door all the way to a wide shot of the “pajamas”, fade out to black and the credits started to roll up there was nothing in the movie theater than complete silence and, I guess, shock. That’s when I realize that this movie was leaving us with a big impact, and then it automatically became my number one favorite movie of all times. The sub title of the movie really talks about what the whole movie is about “Lines may divide us, but hope will united us”. The Boy in Stripped Pajamas makes us realize how kids will always see the bright side of the things and that we need to learn there’s always hope even in the darkest of time.