Though it obviously doesn't have the fantastical elements of Pan's Labyrinth, the sad and affecting The Boy In The Striped Pajamas evokes that movie in its depiction of how children process horrific realities.
In both cases, that horror is fascism, an evil that infects their very homes, while adults force smiles as if all is normal.
The Boy In The Striped Pajamas is the story of Bruno (Asa Butterfield), the eight-year-old son of an SS officer (David Thewlis) who gets reassigned from Berlin to become commandant of an unnamed concentration camp, a short distance from the confiscated mansion that is Bruno's new home.
Something is clearly going on, but Bruno -- who only knows that he is leaving his school and friends to live in a place with no playmates --can't quite figure out what it is.
His sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) is old enough at 12 to (a) be conspicuously attracted to a young SS officer in his father's detail, and (b) to be blithely and thoughtlessly accepting of the insane rationalizations (Jews are responsible for all evil) that are force-fed to them by a tutor.
But even her understanding, and that of her mother (Vera Farmiga) is purposely limited. The secret of the camp is literally a bad smell in the room that no one will talk about.
As intensely curious as he is naive, Bruno scouts out the "farm" and asks, to uncomfortable non-response, if he can play with the children there. Later, when he skins his knee, one of the slave labourers at his home turns out to be a doctor, who dresses his wound. Bruno can't figure out why someone would quit being a doctor to become a potato farmer, just as he can't understand why everybody at the "farm" wears pajamas.
But the mystery deepens when he finally meets a friend, an eight-year-old boy named Schmuel (Jack Scanlon) on the other side of the fence. This is the title relationship of The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, and it is, by turns, heartwarming (they figure out how to play checkers through the wire) and, of course, tragic.
There are few happy endings in a death camp.
If Butterfield is the wide-eyed centerpiece to the drama -- and he is terrific at it -- David Thewlis's performance is also invaluable. Far from the obvious fascist monster-dad that Sergi Lopez played in Pan's Labyrinth, Thewlis's character is a study in extreme compartmentalization, someone who seems to really believe he can maintain a warm heart and healthy family life while carrying out almost unimaginable evil as his dayjob (not that he recognizes it at such).
Indeed, if he was a less loving father, it's possible Bruno would have been better able to mentally process the abomination down the road and his father's role in it. But blissfully dangerous ignorance -- both innocent and deliberate -- is what The Boy In The Striped Pajamas is all about.
It's the opposite of a good time out at the theatre, but it is a well-made film that is difficult to forget.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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