The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)

Set in the middle of World War II, the film tells the story of the friendship between two boys of the same age but living in two completely different worlds. Bruno, an 8-year-old boy, had to leave his home in Berlin, his close friends, and move with his family to a new place near a Jewish concentration camp. His father, Ralf, a high-ranking officer, whom Bruno and his sister Gretel respected very much, was actually Hitler’s direct henchman. After being promoted, he moved here to carry out a new mission – the massacre of Jews.

Being a curious boy by nature, fond of reading and exploring books, and running around to explore the world, one day Bruno accidentally went to the fence of the concentration camp and met Shmuel – a boy of the same age as him and “always wore pajamas with numbers, which were the numbers of some game”.

So Shmuel became Bruno’s only friend there. Bruno always sneaked out in the afternoon, sometimes bringing some bread, sometimes cheese or chocolate for his friend. A beautiful and simple friendship blossomed between a German and a Jew, despite Bruno’s home tutor always stuffing his head with the extreme Jewish dogmas towards his country.

Because of disagreements, after Elsa (Bruno’s mother) and Ralf argued about the cruel policies that Bruno’s father always believed that he was serving the Nazi ideals, his mother decided to take him and his sister back to Berlin. But before the day of the move, Bruno promised Shmuel that he would help the boy find his father. The two planned to take Bruno behind the barbed wire fence. “I’ll bring an extra-big sandwich, and don’t forget the pajama.”

Inside the fence is nothing like what he imagined, there is no cafe, no vegetable store, and no group of children gathered to play games. Just to find his father for Shmuel, the boy Bruno accidentally got lost in the chaotic crowd being escorted by soldiers to the crematorium, accidentally becoming a victim of his father. He died in the ideal furnace that his father created.

The film is told mainly from Bruno’s innocent, naive and kind perspective. The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas borrowed the innocent perspective of children to denounce the shuddering crimes of war. The film is about history but there is not a single gunshot throughout the film, no blood and violence, only leaving the audience with a painful, haunting, and indignant ending.