7.7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.
Starring: Vera Farmiga, David Thewlis, Rupert Friend, David Hayman, Asa ButterfieldHistory | 100% |
War | 81% |
Drama | 33% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Part of the problem with really grasping the enormity of a calamity like the Holocaust is the tragedy’s sheer size and scope. Sure, it’s “easy” to talk about six million Jews and other ethnic and sexual minorities wiped off the face of the earth due to Nazi atrocities, but it somehow doesn’t seem real. Even the best intentioned Hollywood treatments of the horrors of the Holocaust have sometimes seemed too abstract and removed, exercises in emotion, certainly, but perhaps never really fully getting at the core of the essential human tragedy that afflicted so many lives. Though The Boy in the Striped Pajamas has some credibility issues it can’t quite overcome, the film is a bracing drama about the Holocaust which succeeds for the oddest of reasons: the essential horror of Nazi concentration camps are almost a sidebar to the central family drama which plays out when a German Commandant named Ralf (David Thewlis) transports his wife Elsa (Vera Farmiga) and two young children, Gretel (Amber Beattie) and Bruno (Asa Butterfield) from the urban sophistication of Berlin to an unnamed sylvan backwater in the German hinterlands where Ralf has taken over the local “work camp.” Impressionable young Bruno, a lad of eight who considers himself the world’s next great explorer, is fascinated by the “farmers” in the strange striped clothing whom he can spy if he stands on his very most tippy-toes and peers out of his bedroom window past the sheltering trees. That sets into motion a cascading series of events which snowballs toward tragedy, a tragedy which while emotionally devastating is perhaps the film’s weakest element. Based on a number one international bestseller by Irish author John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is notable for seeing the devastation of war generally, and specifically the hideous horrors of the Holocaust in particular, through the eyes of a young child, and it is in that element that the film really finds its most distinctive and effective voice.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The entire film has been variously filtered and post-processed toward the yellow end of the spectrum (it's rather bracing to see the raw, more accurately colored, deleted scenes for a nice comparison). Having pushed the film ever so slightly, director Herman and DP Benoit Delhomme also deal with some contrast issues, especially in some of the golden-hued outdoor shots. All of this said, the Blu-ray sports excellent to actually exceptional fine detail, though it also suffers from fairly regular crush in some of the darker interior scenes. While everything is bathed in saffron, colors within that filtering are good and varied and the film boasts at least average sharpness and clarity, though the filtering tends to lend a hazy layer to the proceedings which some may mistake for softness.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is offered with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that is rather conservative in terms of surround activity, but which features stellar fidelity. This largely quiet, dialogue driven film has few opportunities for big immersive moments, and in fact one of the few really immersive moments comes early in the film, during the promotion party for Bruno's father. Crowd noises are scattered throughout the surrounds, and the live band's music is gently filtered around the soundfield giving a really nice recreation of the ambience of the huge room where the party is taking place. Occasionally we get other nice use of discrete channels, usually for relatively subtle effects like the guards whistling to return the Jewish workers to their barracks. But while there may not be an outright glut of surround activity here, everything sounds very good, with excellent reproduction of all frequency ranges.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas has a lot going for it, and it may in fact be a very worthy way to introduce younger audiences to the horrors of the Holocaust, as it doesn't feature much overt violence and also offers a nice hook for youngsters in that it's told from the perspective of an eight year old. But the film really doesn't hold up to a reasoned examination once it's over, despite its very visceral shock value in its final moments. Does that defeat the film's purpose? Is it even possible to craft a film about the Holocaust told from a German point of view? It's to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas' credit that it at least has the courage to try, and the fact that it succeeds at all, if not in total, is something of a minor miracle. Highly recommended.
2008
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2012
1984
1995
50th Anniversary Edition
1959
2010
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1977
1956
Der Untergang | Collector's Edition
2004
2011
2019
Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter
2013
Deluxe Edition
1952-1953
2017
1989
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Under Sandet
2015
2005