Let's Meet at the Barbwire Fence at Noon

Two young boys meet under drastically different circumstances in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a drama about the Holocaust directed by Mark Herman from a novel by John Boyne.  The story begins with a Nazi officer and his family moving from the hustle and bustle of Berlin to the serenity of the German countryside. All is not quiet on the Eastern front, however, for the officer (David Thewlis) has been promoted to oversee the goings-on at a concentration camp. After the family’s arrival, it isn’t long before son Bruno (Asa Butterfield) notices smoke billowing from the camp’s chimneys. “What’s that horrible smell from the chimneys?” he asks. “Did you smell it, dad? that horrid smell from the chimneys?” The father breathes in the question a moment, then answers, “I think they burn rubbish there sometimes.” It’s a chilling response to the hidden grim reality, what the world would later come to know as the Final Solution.

 

Bruno, without friends and brimming with curiosity, is tempted to explore his new environs. His mother (Vera Farmiga) warns him not to go around the back of the house, but to no avail. A propped door attracts his attention, and soon he is climbing through a window and leaping into the forest that leads to the forbidden place. He runs like a deer for yards and yards, joyously using a stick as a sickle to help clear his way until he spots barbed wire looming behind a thicket of flowers and tall grass. As a natural explorer, Bruno must continue on. Soon enough he discovers a boy (Jack Scanlon) sitting on the opposite side of the wire. The boy’s head is shaved and he wears a shoddy, zebra-striped uniform; he’s merely a number, six or seven digits long across his shirt, but he has a name, Schmuel. He’s a child of doom, forsaken and at hell’s edge, with his rotting teeth desperate for a bite of food. Their first meeting abruptly ends when the camp foreman blows the whistle. Schmuel jumps, has to get back to work. He scurries off, pushing a wheelbarrow as Bruno looks on.

 

The friendship between the two grows despite the wire barrier. Bruno brings food and asks many questions: “Why do you people where pajamas all day? What’s going on with the chimneys?” Schmuel says he doesn’t know much about the chimneys; the area is off-limits. Bruno’s mother, however, is quite aware of the horrors occurring not far from her backyard. She is upset that her husband, sworn to secrecy, never told her about the crematorium. “I thought it was just a camp!” she cries, “for workers!” As their relationship slides into argument and estrangement, Bruno and Schmuel’s friendship enters new territory. When Schmuel reveals that his father has gone missing in the camp, Bruno, ever the explorer, sees it as his duty to help find him. The dangerous rescue mission they hatch triggers a suspenseful -- and very unsettling --conclusion.

 

The evils of World War II Germany come into clear focus by film’s end.  Schmuel sits at the center of that evil and represents the suffering felt by an entire race. His hopelessness and despair leaves a strong impression, but he isn’t so utterly hopeless that he can’t find a friend across barbed wired. When he meets Bruno, the child of privilege, he casts no resentment. All he wants is food and someone to talk to. Whereas Schmuel is enclosed by wires, Bruno is restricted in a different kind of way. He lives in a sprawling brick mansion, fenced in by Nazi guards who man the gates with German Shepherds. Bruno, trapped within his new environs, makes a habit of trying to escape the watchful eyes of his over-protective mother. Often, he succeeds. When he does, we are rewarded with scenes (excepting the climactic one) between two youths caught in the middle of a war that neither can explain. And though the war is inexplicable to both, they fully understand the humanity in each other.

 

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is Rated PG-13 for mature themes and is currently showing in wide release at area theaters.