It's a brave man who takes on a Holocaust film after the powerful and moving Schindler's List set the standard so high. It's an even braver man who tries to tell the tale from the point of view of a child - and the child of a Nazi at that. Yet this is precisely what The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas sets out to do. It focuses on young Bruno, a seven year old, whose father is sent to run a concentration camp for Jews during World War II. Gradually, Bruno comes to befriend a young Jewish boy stuck on the other side of the camp wires. The film has the potential to be a very powerful film - e a child's version of Spielberg's classic. It could be a ...  Read the complete review

Focusing on one of the most famous historical events, The Boy In Striped Pyjamas takes a whimsical look at a family who move into a house near a concentration camp. Initially, its unclear to eight year old Bruno, his 12 year old sister or their mother that the camp is on their doorstep, until Bruno points out that he can see a "farm" just south of their back garden. Bruno is keen to explore, hoping to appease his unhappiness at the move by befriending some of the local farmer's children. He doesn't understand why he is forbidden from crossing the stream to the large barbed fence that "holds the animals in". Eventually, having defied his ...  Read the complete review

It would take a vastly superior director than Mark Herman (he of weighty dramas such as "Blame it on the Bell Boy" and "Brassed Off") to make this one fly - a tale of a lonely eight-year-old boy who makes friends through the fence of a Nazi death camp with a young Jewish lad, the boy in the striped pyjamas of the title. As it is, this film adaptation of John Boyne's popular but controversial book is directed by Mark Herman, and the result is a flaccid, watery, self-serious, far-fetched wannabe fable that borders on the offensive in it's attitude and message. It's World War II - our young hero Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is happy in ...  Read the complete review

This is a story about a friendship of innocence. At times harrowing and with a powerful ending, it tells of two boys who meet at a Nazi prison camp. Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is the son of a Nazi officer who has recently been promoted and moves to outside the camp. Jack Scanlon plays Shmuel, a boy prisoner inside the camp. The two meet by chance in a seemingly unguarded and secluded corner of the camp, each on different sides of the fence keeping the prisoners in. They are unaware of the gravity of the war, of the religious differences they are supposed to have, and unsure of the reasons for the segregation. The film is shown basically through Bruno's eyes, as ...  Read the complete review

Apparently, the US military won't let movie studios use their hardware and troops unless they get to see the script of the film first. If they think the film doesn't show the US military in a good light, politically or factually, the director doesn't get to use the kit, simple as. Needless to say there's a big business in fake military hardware in Hollywood. There is this same kind of concession with holocaust movies in Hollywood in that the Jewish led and saturated movie business is determined to keep the memories fresh of the holocaust by producing and promoting at least one film a year on it come award season. I can't remember a year when we didn't have a Holocaust ...  Read the complete review