Hackneyed Holocaust

The Boy in the Striped Pajamasis a painfully
trite account of concentration camp horrors

TRIVIALIZED TERROR: Jack Scanlon and Asa Butterfield

by CHRISTOPHER SYKES

Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, a Romanian Jew who survived three concentration camps, delivered an oft-cited quote about the Holocaust that forever stuck in my mind: “If you weren’t there, don’t write about it.” As the witnesses of the Holocaust pass on, each following generation is further removed of those horrors, and many worry that youths will belittle or forget the genocide despite the documentation left behind.

As such, it’s praiseworthy that 34-year-old Irishman John Boyne dared to publish The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a fictional children’s book about the son of a Nazi who befriends a young Jewish boy imprisoned in a concentration camp. Contrary to Wiesel, I take no offence to Boyne’s rendition, especially when nutjobs like Iranian prez Mahmoud “No Gays Here” Ahmadinejad question whether the Holocaust even happened.

There’s nothing commendable about Miramax’s adaptation, directed by Mark Herman (Purely Belter). Leave it to Disney to trivialize the Holocaust while delivering a thesis with the subtlety of a jackhammer. While the principal cast present their roles amicably, Pajamas is so precious that I left the cinema worried what this will really “teach” children.

Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is the young star of the film. As a self-proclaimed explorer, Butterfield treads around a countryside manor where his Nazi father (Naked’s David Thewlis) is stationed. Bored because of a lack of playmates, he appears to see children playing at a farm from his window. Despite being forbidden, he wanders through the woods and meets Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) on the other side of the “farm’s” electric fence.

The two begin a friendship that allows the incredibly naïve Butterfield to ask questions like why Scanlon wears pyjamas all day, and why the fence is electrified (his misty-eyed answer: “Because I’m a Jew”). When Butterfield queries his elders, his tutor assures him he’d be the best explorer in the world if he could find a single nice Jew. He then digs under the fence to play with Shmuel, who he thinks is very nice indeed.

There’s only one way for the film to end. I’m not expecting a 13-year-old to watch six hours of Shoah, but these horrors we must never forget don’t deserve such a painfully trite account.

THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS
OPENS THIS FRIDAY, NOV. 14