The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas | |
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Directed by | Mark Herman |
Written by | Mark Herman |
Based on | The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne |
Produced by | David Heyman |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Benoît Delhomme |
Edited by | Michael Ellis |
Music by | James Horner |
Production companies | |
Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 94 minutes |
Countries | |
Language | English |
Budget | $12.5 million [2] |
Box office | $44.1 million [3] |
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (released as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in North America) is a 2008 Holocaust historical drama film written and directed by Mark Herman. It is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by John Boyne. Set in Nazi-occupied Poland, the film follows the son of a Schutzstaffel officer who befriends a Jewish prisoner of his age.
It was released in the United Kingdom on 12 September 2008. It received generally positive reviews from critics for its emotional weight, but was panned by scholars for misrepresenting elements of the Holocaust.
Bruno, an eight-year-old German boy living in Berlin, is uprooted to rural occupied Poland with his family after his father Ralf, an SS officer, is promoted. Bruno notices an extermination camp near the back garden from his bedroom window, but believes it to be a farm; his mother Elsa forbids him from going in the back garden.
Ralf organises Herr Liszt, a private tutor, to teach Nazi propaganda and antisemitism to indoctrinate Bruno and his elder sister, Gretel. This, along with Gretel's crush on Lieutenant Kurt Kotler, a young colleague of her father's, makes Gretel fanatical in her support for the Nazi agenda. Bruno struggles to adjust to the rhetoric in the teaching after Pavel, a doctor-turned-family slave, comes to Bruno's aid after he sustains a minor injury.
Bruno sneaks into the woods, arriving at a barbed wire fence surrounding the camp. He befriends Shmuel, another boy his age. Bruno meets Shmuel regularly, sneaking him food, and learns that Shmuel is a Jew who was brought to the camp with his parents.
Elsa inadvertently discovers from Kurt that the smell from the camp is in fact burning prisoners, and she angrily confronts her husband. Later that night, Kurt reveals his father left Germany for Switzerland to avoid national service and is berated by Ralf; embarrassed, Kurt viciously beats Pavel for spilling a glass of wine. Bruno sees Shmuel working in his home and offers him cake. Kurt finds Bruno and Shmuel talking and berates Shmuel. After seeing him eating, Shmuel informs Kurt that Bruno offered the cake, which Bruno fearfully denies. Bruno tries to apologise to Shmuel later, but he does not reappear at the fence for several days. Later, Bruno clandestinely watches his father and other officers reviewing a propaganda film depicting the camp's conditions as positive.
Ralf informs his family that Kurt was transferred to the Eastern Front; angered, Elsa reveals the reason for his transfer was because Kurt did not initially alert the authorities about his father. Bruno continues returning to the fence and eventually, Shmuel reappears, but with visible injuries. Bruno apologises and Shmuel forgives him. In Berlin, Ralf's mother Nathalie – who disapproves of the Nazi regime – is killed by an Allied bombing raid. At the funeral, Elsa tries to remove a wreath from the Führer out of respect for Nathalie and her beliefs, but Ralf stops her, causing them to fall out after the service.
Back home, Elsa informs Ralf she does not want the children living in the vicinity of the camp. In turn, Ralf then tells Bruno and Gretel their mother is taking them to live with their extended family until the war is over. Bruno visits Shmuel before he leaves and learns that Shmuel's father has disappeared after being transferred to a different work gang. Bruno decides to help Shmuel find him and Shmuel provides Bruno with a prisoner's striped outfit and a cap to cover his unshaven head. Bruno digs under the fence to join Shmuel, but the boys are suddenly rounded up by the guards.
Gretel and Elsa learn of Bruno's disappearance and burst into Ralf's meeting to alert him. A search is launched and a dog tracks Bruno's scent to his discarded clothing. Ralf enters the camp as the prisoners are sent to a gas chamber, where pesticide pellets are poured from a hole in the ceiling, filling the chamber with toxic gas. Bruno and Shmuel are killed in the gas chamber, leaving Ralf, Elsa, and Gretel distraught.
Filming occurred during 29 April 2007 to 7 July 2007, in Hungary. Locations included Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest, Sacelláry Castle in Budafok and several other areas of Budapest. Interiors were filmed at Fót Studios, Budapest. [4] Post-production was completed in London. [5] The total cost of the production was approximately $12.4 million. [2]
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | |
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Soundtrack album by | |
Released | 2008 |
Recorded | 2008 |
Studio | Eastwood Scoring Stage, Warner Bros. Studios |
Length | 52:25 |
Label | Hollywood |
Producer | James Horner |
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the licensed soundtrack album to the film. The score was composed by James Horner. It was released through Hollywood Records in 2008.
No. | Name | Length |
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1 | Boys Playing Airplanes | 4:08 |
2 | Exploring The Forest | 2:32 |
3 | The Train Ride To A New Home | 3:30 |
4 | The Winds Gently Blow Through The Garden | 5:52 |
5 | An Odd Discovery Beyond The Trees | 2:48 |
6 | Dolls Are Not For Big Girls, Propaganda Is... | 3:40 |
7 | Black Smoke | 1:42 |
8 | Evening Supper—A Family Slowly Crumbles | 7:48 |
9 | The Funeral | 1:50 |
10 | The Boys' Plans, From Night To Day | 2:35 |
11 | Strange New Clothes | 9:50 |
12 | Remembrance, Remembrance | 5:29 |
The film opening on 12 September 2008 in the United Kingdom with $253,085 at the box office in 17 theatres. It later opened for a limited time on 26 November 2008 in North America.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas grossed a worldwide total of $44.1 million. [2]
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has a 64% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 142 reviews, with an average rating of 6.30/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A touching and haunting family film that deals with the Holocaust in an arresting and unusual manner, and packs a brutal final punch of a twist." [6] On Metacritic, the film has a normalised score of 55 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [7]
James Christopher, of The Times , referred to the film as "a hugely affecting film. Important, too". [8] Manohla Dargis, of The New York Times , said the film "trivialized, glossed over, kitsched up, commercially exploited and hijacked [the Holocaust] for a tragedy about a Nazi family". [9]
In the Chicago Sun-Times , Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half out of four and said that it is not simply a reconstruction of Germany during the war, but is "about a value system that survives like a virus". [10]
Kelly Jane Torrance in the Washington Times said the film was moving and beautifully told. [11] In spite of some criticism, Ty Burr of The Boston Globe filed this conclusion: "what saves The Boy in the Striped Pajamas from kitsch is the cold, observant logic of Herman's storytelling". [12]
Scholars have criticised the film, saying that it obscures the historical facts about the Holocaust and creates a false equivalence between victims and perpetrators. [13] [14] [15] For example, at the end of the movie, the grief of Bruno's family is depicted, encouraging the viewer to feel sympathy for Holocaust perpetrators. [16] : 125 Michael Gray wrote that the story is not very realistic and contains many implausibilities, because children were murdered when they arrived at Auschwitz and it was not possible for them to have contact with people on the outside. [16] : 121–123 [17] However, according to Nazi records there were 619 male children at the camp; all female and many other male children were gassed upon arrival. [18] A study by the Centre for Holocaust Education at University College London found that The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas "is having a significant, and significantly problematic impact on the way young people attempt to make sense of this complex past". However, a more recent study found that the film's reception is strongly based on the viewers' previous knowledge and beliefs. [19] : 173
Research by Holocaust educator Michael Gray found that more than three-quarters of British schoolchildren (ages 13–14) in his sample had engaged with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, significantly more than The Diary of Anne Frank . The film was having a significant effect on many of the children's knowledge and beliefs about the Holocaust. [16] : 114 The children believed that the story contained a lot of useful information about the Holocaust and conveyed an accurate impression of many real-life events. The majority believed that it was based on a true story. [16] : 115–116 He also found that many students drew false inferences from the film, such as assuming that Germans would not have known anything about the Holocaust because Bruno's family did not, or that the Holocaust had stopped because a Nazi child had accidentally been gassed. [16] : 117 Other students believed that Jews had volunteered to go to the camps because they had been fooled by Nazi propaganda, rather than being violently rounded up and deported. [16] : 119 Gray recommended studying the book only after children had already learned the major facts about the Holocaust and were less likely to be misled by it, [16] : 131 while the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and others cited it as a book/film that should be avoided entirely, and recommendations were made that true accounts, and works from Jewish authors should be prioritised. [20]
Year | Award | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
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2008 | British Independent Film Awards [21] | Best Actress | Vera Farmiga | Won |
Best Director | Mark Herman | Nominated | ||
Most Promising Newcomer | Asa Butterfield | Nominated | ||
2009 | Premio Goya [22] | Best European Film | The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas | Nominated |
Irish Film and Television Awards [23] | Best International Film | Nominated | ||
Young Artist Awards [24] | Best Leading Performance (International Feature Film) | Asa Butterfield & Jack Scanlon | Nominated |
Shmuel or Schmuel/ Shmeil is a Jewish variant of the name Samuel. It comes from שמואל in Hebrew, and is popular also in Polish Yiddish versions of the name: Szmul or Szmuel and Szmulik or Szmulek. Shmuel and variations may refer to:
Kerepesi Cemetery is the most famous cemetery in Budapest. It is one of the oldest cemeteries in Hungary, and has been almost completely preserved.
David Jonathan Heyman is a British film producer and the founder of Heyday Films. Heyman is best known as the producer of all eight installments of the Harry Potter film series, which are based on a series of popular fantasy novels of the same name by author J. K. Rowling. He then produced all three installments of its spin-off prequel series, Fantastic Beasts. His work makes him the second-most commercially successful producer of all time.
The Holocaust has been a prominent subject of art and literature throughout the second half of the twentieth century. There is a wide range of ways–including dance, film, literature, music, and television–in which the Holocaust has been represented in the arts and popular culture.
The Kastner train is the name usually given to a rescue operation which saved the lives of over 1,600 Jews from Hungary during World War II. It consisted of 35 cattle wagons that left Budapest on 30 June 1944, during the German occupation of Hungary, ultimately arriving safely in Switzerland after a large ransom was paid to the Nazis. The train was named after Rudolf Kastner, a Hungarian-Jewish lawyer and journalist, who was a founding member of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee, a group that smuggled Jews out of occupied Europe during the Holocaust. Kastner negotiated with Adolf Eichmann, the German SS officer in charge of deporting Hungary's Jews to Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland, to allow over 1,600 Jews to escape in exchange for gold, diamonds, and cash. The deal was controversial and has been the subject of much debate and criticism, with some accusing Kastner of collaborating with the Nazis, while others argue that he made difficult choices to save lives.
Mark Herman is a British film director and screenwriter, best known for writing and directing the 1996 film Brassed Off and the 2008 film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Film critic Paul Wells offers this assessment of Herman's work in the 2019 book Directors in British and Irish Cinema: "Herman has attracted little critical attention but his preoccupation with the underdog and personal and social injustice makes him a pertinent commentator on the decline of the English working class and its strategies for survival."
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2006 historical fiction novel by Irish novelist John Boyne. The plot concerns a German boy named Bruno whose father is the commandant of Auschwitz and Bruno's friendship with a Jewish detainee named Shmuel.
John Boyne is an Irish novelist. He is the author of sixteen novels for adults, six novels for younger readers, two novellas and one collection of short stories. His novels are published in over 50 languages. His 2006 novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was adapted into a 2008 film of the same name.
Asa Bopp Farr Butterfield is an English actor. He has received nominations for three British Independent Film Awards, two Critics' Choice Awards, two Saturn Awards, and three Young Artist Awards.
Jack Charles Scanlon is an English former child actor who is best known for his role in the 2008 Holocaust film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.
Amber Louisa Oatley Beattie is an English actress, mainly known for her roles as Lulu Baker in Jinx (2009) and as Gretel in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008). She now works as a producer and has worked on shows including Secret Cities with Albert Lin for National Geographic and Disney's Secrets of the Elephants.
The 11th British Independent Film Awards, held on 30 November 2008 at the Old Billingsgate Market in London, honoured the best British independent films of 2008.
Herman A. Rosenblat was a Polish-born American author, known for writing a fictitious Holocaust memoir titled Angel at the Fence, purporting to tell the true story of a girl who passed him food through the barbed-wire fence at the Schlieben sub-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp in World War II. The book was planned to be published in 2009 by Berkley Books, but was cancelled after it turned out that many elements of his memoir were fabricated and some were contrary to verifiable historical facts. Rosenblat later admitted to lying on purpose with the intention of "bringing joy".
Henio Zytomirski was a Polish Jew, who was murdered at the age of 9 in a gas chamber at Majdanek concentration camp during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. Henio became an icon of the Holocaust, not only in Lublin but all over Poland. His life story became a part of the curriculum taught in the general education system in Poland. The "Letters to Henio" project has been held in Lublin since 2005. Henio Zytomirski is one of the heroes of "The Primer" permanent exhibition at barrack 53 of the Majdanek Museum, an exhibition dedicated to children held in the camp.
The Attorney-General of the Government of Israel v. Malchiel Gruenwald, commonly known as the Kastner trial, was a libel case in Jerusalem, Israel. Hearings were held from 1 January to October 1954 in the District Court of Jerusalem before Judge Benjamin Halevi (1910–1996), who published his decision on 22 June 1955.
Berek Lajcher was a Jewish physician and social activist from Wyszków before the Holocaust in Poland, remembered for his leadership in the prisoner uprising at Treblinka extermination camp. More than 800,000 Jews, as well as unknown numbers of Romani people, were murdered at Treblinka in the course of Operation Reinhard in World War II.
The Holocaust in Hungary was the dispossession, deportation, and systematic murder of more than half of the Hungarian Jews, primarily after the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944.
Stanisław "Szlomo" Szmajzner was one of 58 known survivors of the Sobibór extermination camp in German-occupied Poland and participated in the 1943 camp-wide revolt and escape from Sobibór. He was born in Puławy, Poland and died in Goiânia, Brazil.
The question of how much Germans knew about the Holocaust whilst it was being executed is a matter of debate by historians. In Nazi Germany, it was an open secret among the population by 1943, Peter Longerich argues, but some authors place it even earlier. After the war, many Germans claimed that they were ignorant of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazi regime, a claim associated with the stereotypical phrase "Davon haben wir nichts gewusst".
All the Broken Places is a historical fiction novel by John Boyne. It was published on 15 September 2022 by Doubleday and received mixed reviews from critics.