Free Choice Film

This week for the free choice film topic I watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, since I have been wanting to watch it since it is about the Holocaust and it was also on Netflix. In hindsight, I'm not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to watch this movie because it was one of the saddest movies I've ever seen on a very depressing topic. The movie starts off by showing some kids running down a street in Berlin pretending to be airplanes. This is contrasted as it shows a Jewish ghetto in the same town being evacuated as the people are moved to concentration camps. The kids seem oblivious to this though as they continue to play with there careless attitude. What separates this movie from the whole category of World War II movies is that it is told through the eyes of an eight year old boy whose father is a Nazi soldier in charge of a concentration camp. As the family moves closer to the camp, the main character, Bruno, thinks that the concentration camp is a farm and that the Jews are farmers. No one wants to explain to him what the reality of the situation is, so instead they just tell him how his father is improving the homeland, which will make life better for everyone (except the Jews). Bruno's innocence is highlighted throughout the movie to shed light on how awful the situation was, as Bruno fails to realize the smoke in the sky is from burning Jews, the Jewish servant Paval was beaten to death for no reason, and the boy he befriends is a Jew. When Bruno fails to recognize the horror of the situation, he is taught obvious propaganda by both his father, sister, and tutor that the Jews are evil and Nazi's are good for punishing them, as the country cannot succeed with the Jews in the way. I think that this took an interesting view because it showed how the Nazi's used propaganda to gain support from the youth, which was one of their largest supports. In the end, Bruno cannot grasp his mind around the idea that all Jews are bad, as his friend Shmuel is a Jew, and yet seems just like him. The character development of both Bruno and his mother was obvious as all the other characters remained the same throughout the plot. The ending of this movie was probably one of the most tragic and chilling scenes that I've ever seen, but the final shot of the door in the camp as the camera zooms out was a perfect summation of the consequences of the Holocaust on both human lives and innocence. I would give this movie a 9 out of 10 for movies about World War II and the Holocaust.