Looking behind the fence

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One of the most moving films of the year, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamasis a powerful, haunting story about the horrors of the Holocaust. Unlike the vast majority of such stories, however, it doesn’t allow the audience to view events through the eyes of a Jewish character. Instead, we see things from a German perspective. But this is not a revisionist telling of the story, let alone a justification of the Final Solution, but a fresh look at it through the innocent eyes of eight-year-old Bruno (Asa Butterfield). I asked John Boyne, who wrote the novel on which the film is based, why he had taken this route since it ran the risk of making us feel more sorry for the oppressors than the oppressed. He replied that he felt compelled to write about this subject, keeping the memory of it alive for a new generation, yet could not presume to tell the story through the eyes of a Jewish inmate. Instead, by looking in through the fence from outside, he could ask the important questions. He says:

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