Vera Farmiga

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Dir: Mark Herman (2008)

I will go to see Vera Farmiga in just about anything.* She is destined for Cate Blanchett-like greatness. I even plan to rent her first breakout role in the indie "Down to the Bone." I say this to explain what would make me go to this troubling concept film: an adaptation of a children's novel that deals with the Holocaust from the point of view of a privileged German child. Touchy material, to say the least. I myself am very wary of any depictions of World War II atrocities in the context of an 'entertainment' (see, or better yet, don't see, Miracle at St. Anna). And I cannot argue with people who find this movie morally reprehensible -- except for those critics who feel so high and mighty they break the cardinal rule of movie-reviewing by revealing the ending!! (Don't worry, I gave the NY Times' Manohla Dargis a piece of my mind!) But I am not one of those people -- I found it powerful and moving.

I am using the proper British title, per IMDB, because this is a veddy British production down to its core: all the Germans speak with British accents which, once you resign yourself to this anachronism, isn't as distracting as I would have thought (at least all the accents are consistently British). And the story moves down a conventional path: family of Nazi officer leaves their secluded life in Berlin to move next door to a concentration camp, and predictably lose their illusions about the world they live in. (It takes them a surprisingly long time, considering they moved next to a CONCENTRATION CAMP!!) True, this is a story told from the point-of-view of an eight-year-old, but at times you want to tell the kid to "wise-up already!!"

He does eventually wise up, but the payoff is so emotionally powerful and gut-wrenching ... while at the same time doing justice to the unspeakable horror of the millions of victims this movie had previously ignored ... that I do not feel bad recommending it for its small contribution to our collective memory.

This is the film that made Vera famous!

* I make an exception for "Joshua," because I am so sick of movies about creepy & evil little boys... The Omen, The Omen: II, Damian: Omen III....enough already!