Summary
Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is an eight-year-old boy in wartime Berlin. His officer father Ralph (David Thewlis), a loving husband and father as well as a good soldier, has just been promoted and a party is being held to celebrate. He has become an Obersturmbannführer (equivalent to a Lieutenant-Colonel) in the SS, the part of the German forces that were unswervingly loyal to Hitler, earning him the disapproval of his mother. Ralph’s new posting is in Poland – as commandant of a death camp, and he is taking the family with him.
From his bedroom window in their new house, Bruno sees what he assumes is a farm. At first he thinks there will be new friends for him there, but he’s puzzled by how strange the farmers must be, since they all wear striped pyjamas. As the days pass, Bruno becomes increasingly bored, but he is banned from exploring the garden at the back of the house. One day, he grabs a chance to sneak into the garden, through the window of the shed and into the woods beyond. Soon he reaches the camp fence where he meets Schmuel (Jack Scanlon), a Jewish boy of the same age.
Bruno is envious of Schmuel playing games with his friends all day, while he is stuck outside on his own. But as the days unfold, Bruno gradually learns more about the grim reality beyond the wire, with terrible consequences.
Background
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is based on the bestselling novel by John Boyne, first published in 2006. He says,
It goes without saying that a work of fiction set in the time and place of the Holocaust is contentious and any writers who tackle such stories had better be sure of their intentions before they begin. This is perhaps particularly important in the case of a book written for children. For me, a 34-year-old Irish writer, it seemed that the only respectful way to approach the subject was through innocence, with a fable told from the point of view of a rather naive child who couldn’t possibly understand the horrors of what he was caught up in. I believe that this naiveté is as close as someone of my generation can get to the dreadfulness of that period.
Screenwriter/Director Mark Herman obtained the rights to film the book and teamed up with producer David Heyman, who had been wanting to make a film of it for some time. They realised the difficulties of the project because of how sensitive the subject matter is, but both are convinced, like Boyne, that the horror of the Holocaust is something that every generation must understand so that it is never repeated.
Herman and his team were committed to being as authentic as possible to the period and the realities of death camps, although the story is fictional. In fact, the biggest digression from authenticity was having a boy of Schmuel’s age living in the camp: the tragedy is that the vast majority of children arriving at death camps were sent to the gas chambers immediately.
Inevitably, Herman needed to make some changes to the story in adapting it for the film. One significant one was giving a greater role to Elsa (Vera Farmiga), Bruno’s mother, which enabled them to increase the drama in the family, and show how even the commandants' wives didn’t always know what was happening in the camp. Another was the addition of the propaganda film, which was based on a real film purporting to show the camps as wonderful places. The inclusion of this renews Bruno’s faith in his father when it is beginning to waver, and compounds his confusion about the nature of the camp. The ending has also been changed.
Questions for discussion
What did you think of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas? What did you particularly appreciate? How did your emotions change during the course of the story?
If you have read John Boyne’s novel, how do the two compare? Do you think the changes are helpful or unhelpful? Why?
Do you think Boyne was right to look at this subject from the perspective of a naïve young boy? How effective do you think this was in helping you to approach the subject?
How did you feel about Bruno and his family when we first meet them in Berlin? To what extent did you struggle to identify with them because they are a Nazi family?
What did you think of Bruno’s character? What did you like about him? What didn’t you like?
To what extent could you understand Bruno’s adoration of his father, and his struggle to come to terms with what he was discovering?
How did your feelings about Ralph (Bruno’s father) change during the film? Was there a turning point in your feelings? If so, when?
Why do you think Ralph did what he did? How would he have justified it to himself and to others?
What do you think drove Obersturmführer Kotler to be so cruel?
Why does Gretel change? What impact does this have on Bruno?
How would you describe Elsa? Were you surprised that Elsa (Bruno’s mother) was unaware of the true nature of the camp? How would you have responded to this situation if you had been in her position?
‘Elsa doesn’t think. She doesn’t think for herself, she doesn’t think deeply. She chooses to be oblivious, concerning herself only with the safety of her family and her position in society – everything else is beyond her periphery. She’s a sort of accomplice and assistant to her husband’s ideals, his desires, his morals and his ambitions.’ (Vera Farmiga)
To what extent do you think she is morally responsible for what happens?
How would you describe the friendship between Bruno and Schmuel? What makes it a good friendship?
Why did Bruno betray Schmuel? Why was their friendship able to survive this?
How do you think the family, and Ralph in particular, would be impacted by the final scenes of the film?
How do the characters in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas exemplify Hannah Arendt’s notion of ‘the banality of evil’, that evil arises out of the tendency of ordinary people to follow orders, to accept what they’re told by authorities, to conform to the prevailing opinion? How easily could such evil arise in our own society? What might lead to it? What could prevent it?
To what extent is Bruno’s friendship with Schmuel like God’s love for human beings expressed in Jesus Christ’s incarnation? How is it different?
In what sense is this a redemptive story?
Does The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas fill you with despair or hope? Why?
What would you identify as the most important messages from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas?
taken from http://www.damaris.org/content/content.php?type=1&id=418
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