The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

A synopsis of the plot of the film I saw may be found at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_in_the_Striped_Pyjamas

- another exploitative Holocaust potboiler.

It seems to be some sort of Nazi morality tale. The morals I have managed to discern are as follows:

1. You shouldn't exterminate people, even if you regard them as subhuman vermin.
2. If you must do this sort of thing, you shouldn't bring your children along to your place of work if you happen to be Kommandant of a death camp (David Thewlis).
3. If you are an Aryan child about to befriend a Jewish child, do not on any account dress up as an inmate of the camp and dig your way into it to help him find his missing father, or you will end up being exterminated with the Jews.
4. If you are a Jewish child, on no account allow your well-meaning Aryan friend to dig into your death camp in his desire to help you find your father, thus causing him to lose his life, thus confirming the Nazi view that the Jews are a treacherous people on whom compassion is wasted.

The dialogue between the two boys is mawkish and utterly unconvincing.

David Thewlis was all right I suppose, but David Hayman, who played the Jewish doctor forced to be waiter, gardener and kitchen help in a Nazi household did manage to move me to tears. If it were not a complete work of fiction, written by a children's writer, there might have been some point to it. That it is being touted as a work suitable for children is astonishing, for it could be said to fan the flames of anti-Semitism. (See 4th moral.) This emotionally exploitative story is as morally empty as it is fictitious and improbable.