The Boy In the Striped Pajamas (Review)

More of a Greek tragedy than anything to grace the silver screen in a while, The Boy In the Striped Pajamas is a poignant look inside the emotionally tumultuous lives of the family of an SS officer during WWII as viewed through the eyes of an 8 year old boy.

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The film opens on a group of young kids playing at an aerial dog fight in the streets of Berlin. One of them is Bruno (Asa Butterfield), the son of the above mentioned Officer played by David Thewlis. He comes home to find that his father has received a promotion and that there is to be a party to celebrate later that evening and that they are soon going to leave the city as the promotion comes with reassignment to a rural location. When they arrive we realize that it is the running of a concentration camp that Thewlis his been charged with but he and his wife (Vera Farmiga) try to keep this from the young boy. As the child tries to make sense of the new situation he finds himself in and to alleviate his boredom he sneaks out of the house and through the woods to the edge of the camp where he befriends Shmuel, a small boy of the same age who is hiding in a corner of the camp on the other side of an electrified fence. They grow to become friends although there is a disconnect in their experiences. Bruno, fed by childhood innocence, propaganda films, a strict nationalist tutor and the blind love of his father believes that the people in the camp are living a life of hard but enjoyable work while the horror of the place, written all over Shmuel face, cannot be adequately conveyed to his friend by his young mind. Bruno is forced to grow up quickly in this environment even to the point of questioning the goodness of his own father, especially after his mother finds out the true secret of “The Final Solution” and deteriorates into an almost catatonic state.

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Mark Herman’s film is as stark in its set design as in its affecting story line with a haunting quality that constantly unnerves the audience. Based on John Boyne’s novel of the same name, the story takes quite a few liberties with historical accuracy but due to the power of material, much like the Bruno himself, we look on with a child’s eyes totally engrossed in the tale being told. And not one of those eyes is dry when the film reaches its ultimate climax where the eerily calm home life of Bruno is finally contrasted with the frenzied confusion and shocking conditions of life inside camp and Bruno see for the first time what has been hidden from him. This is not a Disneyfied fairy tale like The Kite Runner or a piece of life affirming Oscar bait but a profound tragedy that will leave you in solemn silence but with an appreciation for the brave talent who decided that this is a tale that should be told.

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A

Oscar Nominated Short Film (Part 2)

Animated

I Met the Walrus
This 5 minute piece is set to a recording a kid took of himself interviewing John Lennon in the late 60’s. He snuck into his hotel room in Toronto with a reel to reel recorder and captured this audio with Lennon talking about peace and war. The animation takes queues from the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine as it cascades over images as they blend into one another like a Bill Plypton short.
B-

Even Pigeons Go to Heaven
This is a CG short about a crooked priest who attempts to sell a old man a contraption that will take him to heaven since his list of sins wouldn’t let him get there on his own. The old man hands over all his cash when “Death” enters the house and we find that he’s not such a hapless old bat after all. This one is about 8.5 minutes long but the story is fun coherent and engaging so I think it is one of the two that could take the Oscar.
A

Madame Tutli Putli
This is a dialogue free, 18 minute short about a woman by herself on a train ride. The plot is almost irrelevant to the striking visuals which are stop-motion puppeteering I think, but the atmosphere that is created in the film is creepy.
B

My Love
A 26 minute Russian film about a 16 year old boy and his multitude of pubescent infatuations that conspire to ruin his young love life, this is the 4th animated short nomination for director Aleksandr Petrov (previously winning for The Old Man and the Sea). The style is like animated water colours and is beautiful yet tends to confuse some similar looking characters. The convoluted plot that jumps between reality and fantasy is also a draw back.
C+

Peter and the Wolf
Probably the best of the nominees as well as the longest at 32 minutes this BBC production is a retelling of the classic story with the score but no narration. Instead the stop motion animation creates simple yet engaging visuals that tell the story. I found myself reacting to this one more than any other nominee. And the ending of the story is change to a nice and PETA friendly conclusion that will garner votes among the Hollywood crowd.
A

Oscar Nominated Short Films

The theater I saw this at was showing it on DVD input to he projection – this may be the reason all the films had a decidedly greyed out look to them.

Short (Live)

Om natten (At Night)
The story of 3 girls in an end of the line cancer ward on New Years Eve, their stories and how they try to cope with their situation. The film is antiseptic in its look as one would expect from the location with its florescence, metal surfaces and white accoutrement. We know from the start that the one girl with the jet black hair will cause the problems. The whole thing is packed with emotion and the acting from the three girls is superb but the pacing keeps you in their way too long for my tastes (not a hospital person). This is the longest of the shorts at 39 min, from denmark and produced by Lars Von Trier’s Zentropa.
A-

Il Supplente (The Substitute)
An Italian comedy with a twist. The film opens on a montage of images in a high school and brings us into a class where we are introduced to the new substitute teacher who proceeds to play with the students turning their stereotypical roles against them (kiss up, arty poet, dumb jock, ect). In the middle of this the principal comes in asking who this man is… he apologizes and jumps out the window. Then we follow him to see he is a business man working in a building overlooking the school while a voice over talks about the need to break out of adult thinking. Once in a meeting with his boss a new situation presents itself… will he use this new found mischievous streak or cave to the corporate pressure? This is a fun little film that floats by quickly. (17 min)
B+

Les Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)
A charming little film (how can it not be with that title) about a couple of affable tramps who find themselves with a deaf-mute (or maybe he just doesn’t know French) tag along after a pick pocketing attempt goes wrong. They realize they can use him to make some cash… but that turns out badly. Then the kid makes an unexpected haul in a theater due to his ability to crawl under the seats (checked my coat at this point). They celebrate and expand their operation until a stupid mistake on the part of one of the tramps lands them all in the slammer. This is a well shot and edited short that gets its story across in 31 minutes and I think will be the winner tonight.
A

Tanghi Argentini
This feels more like a super bowl commercial than a short film (though that is often a blurred line). This is the shortest of the films at 14 minutes and tells the tale of a Belgian office worker who makes a date online for Tango! In two weeks… you guessed it he doesn’t know how to tango. So he begs a fellow office worker to teach him… the office worker is a 6’ 3” bald guy – but a former tango master. Cue montage. We get to the big night and the dance is going great till she leans in to kiss him and he drops her. Feeling sad he heads off to the bar with the teacher. We see the woman sad at their table and he says that the teacher should make her happy by asking her to dance, which goes quite well. The next day the teacher comes to the office thanking the man and after walking away we find hi break out a sheet of paper with the names of all their coworkers and he crosses the teachers name off! It’s an office cupid! This is the best looking of the shorts with the camera and edits replicating the motion of the dancers on screen. But as I said it kind of feels like a long commercial instead of a short film.
A-

The Tonto Woman
A short from the UK, filmed in Spain, replicating the American Old West, this is easily the worst of the offerings. The plot is of a cattle thief who stumbles upon a naked woman in out in the desert range. She is white but her jaw is covered in the Native American tattoos of a skwa. He finds that she was kidnapped shortly after marriage by Indians and held for 11 years before her husband was able to get her back. She is now kept in this shack on his ranch away from polite society and he cannot even look at her. The cattle thief gets her a dress and takes her out for dinner enamored with her beauty and strength. Of course it all ends in a gunfight (off screen) between the husband’s men and the thief. The acting in the film is BAD, very, very bad. The characters are badly lit and the whole 35 minutes is just painful… have no idea how this got a nomination. Should have nominated Spider instead.
D

Atonement (Review)

An actors film that is at times engrossing and often satisfying but there are flaws that hold it back from true romanic epic status.

This non-linear narrative starts off in a pastoral British country estate in the tense times between the wars. The owner's eldest daughter (Keira Knightley) relaxes after coming home from Cambridge and falls for the long time, yet upwardly mobile helper boy played by James MacAvoy. On a hot day the house gets packed with family and friends and mistakes happen... and other things happen that are not mistakes. Briony Tallis, the youngest daughter, allows her overactive imagination to get the best of her and MacAvoy is falsely accused of a heinous crime and sent to prision. 4 years later he enlists and before shipping to France the romance is rekindled providing the perfect set up for painful seperation and a sweet homecoming.

The deftly handled overlapping narrative of the first act flips between several first person set-ups to reveal several points of the story. The acting is pure british stage and uniformly impressive. The flaws aren't revealed until the war begins and the overlapping turns to flashback laden timeshifting and the story gets muddled. The small upstairs/downstairs intruigue of the early part of the film works beautifully but the the grand epic of the longing and horrors of war fail to live up to this start. There is one long-shot on the beach in Dunkirk that lasts for more than five minutes yet despite this technical feat the scene adds nothing to the plot and this is just one scene among many that while powerful in their own right are adrift from any relavance to the story and fail to build up MacAvoy's character.

Once back in Britian we catch up with the Tallis sisters and the film refocuses with strong character scenes and plot resolution on the way to an emotionally powerful finale which is tellegraphed by some subtle flightly camera work and a sense that something is slightly off but the bad taste of the second act still lingers. I liked the film for the most part and the leads are strong but it is far from the Oscar contender the hype would lead one the lead to believe.

B+

A special mention about the main title theme and its variations...loved it. Though I don't know him by name Dario Marianelli (did V for Vendetta) crafts a great piece around a base of type strokes from a typewriter and it works beautifully.