The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)

You don't often sit in a BAFTA screening and hear weeping behind you but even the most hardened cineaste would be moved by this look at the holocaust through an Aryan child's eyes.

It is beautifully scripted, acted and shot too - with none of the anachronisms of taste and language that bedevil historically-set films such as The Duchess.

A small, British movie with an unusual take on a ghastly and well-worn subject.

PS - for parents: It's a 12A in Britain and I wouldn't take a child under about eleven. Nor would I let them go alone.

Fmovies: I was sitting at the very back row of Cineworld, Dublin screen nine and struggling with my tears. I thought it would be extremely embarrassing if people see tears in my eyes. But I was so wrong! The lady sitting beside me was crying like anything. Finally we ended up with the move and it started showing casts on its black screen. But, not a single person moved from his seat or probably lost their (including myself) power to move. The only sound I heard was the sound of people's emotion. Guy sitting one row before me hugged his girlfriend who were crying like a little kid. The guy himself was also in tear. I saw a girl from Cineworld cleaning staff with horrifying red eyes. Everyone was spellbound there!

I am talking about the movie THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS, unexpectedly a too good movie. I didn't have a single clue about the movie itself and just tried to explore something new. Fortunately or unfortunately, Bruno (main cast of the movie), a young 8-years old kid who love to explore new world explored too much for us that made us all cry while leaving the cinema. I just don't want to spoil your entertainment by giving hints about the story. Rather, I would suggest you to watch the movie and discover some critical facts that sometime we forget in this heartless world.

THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS, a movie from an Irish writer and an English director; everyone must watch. If you tell me to rate, I would say, 1 to 10 scale is not enough to rate this movie. We better keep it above rating!

Although it starts of slow,you soon get wrapped up in the story and feel as if you are there. It's amazing to see the different points of view and the acting is so believable you feel as if it is all happening there and then. I have cried at films in the cinema before but this is the only film that has made me want to sob. When it finished and the credits started rolling, no one moved from their seats or said anything. We were all shocked, and when people did start to get up an leave the cinema, still no one said anything. It is the best film i have ever seen and recommend everyone sees it.

Sophie x x x

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas fmovies. My fiancé and I purchased tickets for a special advanced screening of this movie during the Carnegie Film Festival in Dunfermline, Fife. I didn't realise, but we were one of the first people to see it. I will try and not spoil it and keep the review very simple and straight forward.

The film is mainly shot through the eyes of Bruno played by Asa Butterfield growing up in war time Germany during the holocaust. After relocating at the will of the German Army, the film then centres on the friendship between Bruno and Shmuel (Jack Scanlon). I will end it there as I don't wish to spoil the rest of the film.

Putting to one side the fact that everyone has a flawless English accent (which does make it difficult to hate them at first), the cinematics, sound, editing and above all acting are a credit to the British film industry.

Asa Butterfield is fine young actor and I'm sure will be destined for even greater things in the future.

As I mentioned above, I won't give anything away, but I will say that this is the first time I have been to the Cinema and everyone sat quiet right up until the end of the credits.

Please, please see this film. It will remain with you for a long time.

There are more dramatic and more philosophical pieces of cinema dealing with this very emotive subject, but few deal with the horror, futility and falsehood of the "final solution" with such clear simplicity. We see the lead characters as both humans and monsters we see internal conflict and how they each come to terms with their conflicts, above all we see how futile their conclusions were.

There will be the predictable comparisons with Schindler's List but you might also want to compare this movie to "The Counterfeiters" which also deals with the conflicts necessary to survive. Watching this movie I kept being drawn back to Primo Levi's book "If This is Man" the story of his time as a prisoner suffering from this evil.

The great success of the film is its simplicity, it does not seek to over analyse but simply allows the development of the characters to tell the story.

One of the contributers spoke of how he was in screen 9 (if I remember correctly) in Cineworld Dublin - I was in Screen 11 and I can had the same experience, the film ended and no one moved, all were in a state of shock, no, sorrow. This is not a film for young children, but older children and adults familiar with the evil addressed in this movie should go and see it. This movie deserves great success. I rate it 9 out of 10 and would have given it a perfect score except for some small technical questions, but none that take away from this fantastic piece of cinema - All associated with this movie should be rightly proud of there work and if any of you read these comments - Thank You!

There have been more than a few films on the subject of the Holocaust, possibly the daddy of them all being Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" based on the book "Schindler's Ark" by Thomas Keneally. Much better, however, in my mind is Costa-Gavras' "Amen" based on Rolf Hochhuth's play "Le Vicaire". Now Mark Herman's "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas", itself based on John Boyne's novel, is fit to mentioned alongside these two great films.

I was initially doubtful at the premise of this film since my knowledge of Holocaust history suggested that 8 year old boys would have been sent straight to the gas chambers on arrival rather than set to work in a camp (obviously I am happy to be set straight on this point if I am wrong). And having seen the film, I also doubt that the boy in the camp (Shmuel, well played by Jack Scanlon) would be able to sit at the camp fence undetected long enough to meet and talk to Bruno, the camp Commandant's son (an astonishingly assured performance by newcomer Asa Butterfield).

There has also been some criticism of the fact that all the actors speak in Received Pronounciation English accents (even American actress Vera Farmiga, whose English accent is completely faultless). This is true, although to be completely accurate, all the actors would have to speak in German and the film would have had to be subtitled as a result.

In truth, however, none of these criticisms actually matters a damn. For even though all of the above is undeniably true, the film still works. And my, how it works. When it finished, I sat in my seat stunned (I had the same reaction after watching "Disaster Movie" last week, but most definitely not for the same reason, I assure you).

The Holocaust as seen through the prism of 8 year old German boy is a novel approach and although we all know what is happening at the camp nearby, at the beginning, he does not. And every step he takes, he gets closer to discovering the truth, losing his childhood innocence in the process.

What I liked about this film is the sophisticated and multi-layered portrayal of the German characters. None of them are one dimensional wholly evil characters but nor are they wholly good either (not even Bruno who tells lies on several occasions, one occasion which results in brutal punishment for one of the prisoners as a consequence).

With good performances from Asa Butterfield as Bruno, Amber Beattie as his sister, David Thewlis as his father, Vera Farmiga as his mother and Jack Scanlon as Shmuel, this may not be the first film about the loss of childhood innocence in the Holocaust (Roberto Benigni beat Herman to it with "Life is Beautiful" and whilst Benigni's film has a powerful end of its own, even that does not compare to the powerful shattering ending which this film possesses) but it is the best and most effective to date.

With restrained direction by Mark Herman and a similarly restrained score from James Horner, if this film does not win the hat full of Oscars next year that it surely deserves, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will have shown itself to be completely irrelevant.