The Boy In The Striped Pajamas - Mark Herman - 2008
When the film started I mostly wondered “Is it a wise idea to do a film about Nazi Germany in English?”.
But I came to thinking “Actually it’s a great idea. Nazi Germans were people too, and perhaps portraying them in their native, foreign, tongue makes it too easy for the english-speaking west. Too detached. Imagine Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Downfall performed in english.”
However “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” doesn’t quite reach the heights of Hirschbiegel’s masterpiece.
It’s a good film, with some great scenes and lighting, a few touching and humourous scenes, and a satisfyingly dark ending. But some of it feels too knowing in it’s naivety.
Notably, if this film had been in German I’d probably be praising it as poignant, but in English it feels a bit more like a BBC TV movie.
