Movie Review: The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas

Disturbing on several levels. While watching my roomie and I sat next to each other, and I looked over and said I'm going to start crying soon just so you know. "Oh, yeah. Me too," replied my roomie.

The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas is a brilliant film. Everyone know what happened during the Holocaust, but to see it through the eyes of a child who has no idea about what is actually happening. The film is more about a family than a friendship; the family goes through a transformation. The happy parents before they move to the camp, and how the marriage falls apart when the wife becomes aware of the extermination. The wife only concerns herself with what concerns her and her family. She becomes concerned about what her children are being taught after her daughter become a Nazi youth. She becomes more and more aware, and visually the audience becomes more aware of her perception and understanding of the realities of the situation, and we see this through the transformation of her clothing and look.

The son, Bruno, is our youth German boy who has very little understanding of what is going on, and even when he learns something about the realities he is immediately told something else. The boy, Shmuel, tells Bruno the camps are bad, and then Bruno sees a a film claiming the camps to be wonderful. Bruno is so easily swayed because of his age. Of course the relationship between Shmuel and Bruno ends in tragedy; the way so much ended.

The daughter, Gretel, begins the film as a young 12, but as she develops a crush one of the Nazi soldiers she becomes interested in active participation for the fatherland. The racism which surrounds the characters is horrifying. As my roomie says, "I'd be shot for smacking a little kid," in reference to the children harassing the Jews on the street.

I give it a 5/5 because I have difficultly scoring anything lower when children are involved and I cry.

Movie Review: Sophie Scholl The Last Days

I've seen this film before a year ago, and it was amazing then as well. Sophia Scholl The Last Days chronicles the arrest, interrogation, trial, and execution of Sophia, Hans (her brother), and Christoph Probst. All members of the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. They were convicted of distributing resistance leaflet on campus. All were executed by he guillotine on February 22, 1943.

The film is beautiful and haunting. I'm not aware if Scholl had a preoccupation with faith, but it was a strong theme in the film. Sophia prays at several point during the movie, and in one particular scene, the prayer is reminiscent of the Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Sophia is a strong female lead and during the trail challenges the judge, and in her final remarks to the court tell those trying her that they will be next.

I give it a 5/5.

Cleveland: Home of Winners

A retired Ohio auto worker John Demjanjuk has been accused of 29,000 counts of accessory to murder for his role as a guard in a Nazi death case. Of course, Demjanjuk denies involvement. He will be formally charged when he arrives in Germany.