Thursday, May 17, 2012

PERIOD 1 - BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS

Please share your thoughts about the film.


34 comments:

Marissa Welch said...

I thought this was a very good and interesting film, although the ending was very sad. I thought that it was interesting to see what was happening through the eyes of a little, non-Jewish boy. I also, liked the fact that you could tell the mom wasn’t completely for what was going on. She always seemed to be out of the loop and it didn’t seem like she wanted to be. I think it was interesting to show the way the father acted. You could tell he was really in charge and didn’t care that he was killing thousands of innocent people. However, at the end after he realized he killed his own son, you could tell by the expression on his face, there was a little regret. If none of this had ever happened his son would still be alive. My favorite part of this movie was when the little boys were in the gas chamber and they held hands. I think this symbolized the fact that these different people could get along and be there for each other.

Lyndsie Graham said...

I really liked this movie despite how upsetting the content was. I thought it did a great job of personalizing the killing camps from the other side. Even though this movie is fiction, it leaves the viewer with the impression that families of prominent Nazi's may have been clueless as to what went on at the killing camps. The older sister showed how easy it was to brainwash young people into agreeing with the Nazi's and Bruno showed how it's much easier for innocent children to get over prejudice. I've seen this movie before but it's just as sad and emotionally draining every time I watch it.

Lyndsie Graham said...

I agree with Missy because the image of the two young boys, from both sides of the killing camp, gripping hands before they lose their lives is very powerful.

Alisa Raniuk said...

I really liked this movie even though it was wicked sad. I think it was really well made and very affective. It was also sad that the dad finally realized what it was like to go through that. It was also just heartbreaking that the boys were just at the wrong place at the wrong time all because they were looking for the little boys' dad. Overall the movie was really good and even though it was wicked sad and I'm glad we watched it.

Allie Henriques said...

Although I enjoyed this movie, I thought it was extremely heart-wrenching. It was really interesting to see such a strong bond between the two boys despite the corrupt society they lived in. They didn’t care about the differences they had. I thought Bruno was such a selfless little boy because he was so quick to help the Jews, even at his own cost. I hope Bruno’s father realized how terrible the camps were once it directly affected him.

Allie Henriques said...

I agree with Marissa because I thought the scene of the two boys holding hands in the gas chamber was extremely powerful.

Bram Eagan said...

This movie was very interesting in that it was from a little boys perspective. At first I thought that the mother did not know what was going on but as the movie progressed it showed that she a an idea of what was going on and she was trying to shelter her children from it. Although that did not work with the daughter but her son stayed in the dark about what was actually going on. The ending of the movie was very sad. I could tell when the boys father knew he was being gassed and that was when he went into the empty room.

Raunaq Zamal said...

I thought this film was extremely depressing but it really drove the injustice of the holocaust home. The fact that children were treated the way they were under Nazi rule is just disgusting. How the father could basically sentence children to death all while caring for his own child is beyond me. I guess no matter how terrible it is, it's karma that Bruno died.

David Whalen said...

This movie was better than I thought it would be. I remember seeing previews for it and it seemed bland and simple. In those previews I saw none of the power that existed in every scene. The movie although fairly predicable, still kept me on the edge of my seat. I never was surprised that the movie lacked a happy ending but having the main character gassed in a concentration camp is just about the farthest thing from a happy ending I can imagine. If this wasn't based off a true story I still think it could have happened. Anyone that age could have been so naive. That still holds true today.

David Whalen said...

I agree with Lyndsie, I liked how the film personalized the camps from the other side. The film showed how the camp had a way of effecting some of the people running it and also showed the brainwashing in great detail.

Sean anderson said...

I agree with Raunaq that the film showed how horrible the nazis were in killing children in concentration camps daily, but how horrible it seems to them when one if their children dies.

Steph Melvin said...

Though this movie was insanely sad, I enjoyed watching it. It was interesting to see the Holocaust from the point of view of a little boy. He did not understand what was going on inside the concentration camp, he thought all the people inside were playing a game. The scene that really showed Bruno's innocence was when he said it wasn't fair he was on the outside while everyone inside the camp got to play. I thought the ending was extremely sad and hard to watch. It gave me a real picture of the gas chambers. The image of the two boys holding hands in the gas chambers is stuck in my head. This movie was very powerful overall.

Steph Melvin said...

I agree with Lyndsie in that the older sister showed how easy it was to brainwash people into the Nazi views. I also agree that it was easier for Bruno to get over the prejudice because the Nazi views had not been instilled in him at 8 years old yet. He friended the Jewish boy simply because he was a good person and they got along.

Mitch Crowder said...

I enjoyed this movie very much even though it was really sad. I like how they used the kids' ignorance and innocence to show that what the Nazi's were doing was bad.

Mitch Crowder said...

I agree with Lyndsie. It was surprising to hear that the wife of the man that ran the camp didn't even know what was going on inside of them.

sean considine said...

i was absent that day

Erik Harrington said...

This was a very moving film. As the movie went on the angrier I got because the Germans were so careless. This movie really shows us how little they cared and how efficient they were at everything. It's also terrible how the boys father could have easily prevented all of it but instead he just did his job and killed his son while doing so.

Conor Doyle said...

This film was very well done. The accuracy of the setting depicted was incredible and the producers did a great job recreating such an awful thing. The film was really good, probably one of my favorites that we have seen all year. The ending was very sad but it was very interesting watching the hollocaust occur in the point of view of a little boy.

Conor Doyle said...

I do agree with Eric. It's ironic how the father who ran the camp and was secretly producing propaganda films, and killing thousands of Jews everyday, ended up killing his own son because of it.

Sean Thekkeparayil said...

I thought this movie was good, I liked how showed the Holocaust through a new perspective. The idea of showing it through a young kids eyes was a creative idea. However, I did find the ending rather predictable.

Julia Afshari said...

I was absent

Emily dwyer said...

This movie was so sad. It was hardto wtch because Bruno was so innocent to the point where he thought he concentration camp was a farm. Althought the ending was extremely sad, it was a wake up call for the father. Because he was then able to understand what it was that he was doing to thoisands of people an how wrong it was. I wish we couldve seen more of the fathers reaction

Pat McGonagle said...

The boy in the striped pajamas was one of the most powerful and moving movies I have ever seen. It was very ironic how the family moved from their happy life to a non social life just so the father could run one of the concentration camps and that ended up causing the death of his son

Krystle armand said...

This movie was very interesting. It was sad to two little boys who were just so innocent die the way they did without knowing what to expect.

Taylor johnson said...

I think that this movie was extremely powerful and incredibly sad when the boy died. I also think it was a wake up call to the father though because his non Jewish son was mistaken for a Jew.

Krystle a said...

I agree wirh emily when ahe says that this must have been a wakeup call for the father. And i too wish we could have seen more of his reAction

Jacquie Callery said...

This movie was extremly sad. It was so hard to watch the innocence that bruno had about the death camps. Seeing how his family lived so close to one showed how okay people were with the mass killings. This movie left a huge imprint on me.

Jacquie Callery said...

I agree with Emily. Although this movie was extremely sad and at times, hard to watch, it was still a wake up call that, in a blunt way of saying, gave Brino's father a taste of his own medicine.

Logan desanti said...

I though that this movie was extremely sad and it really made the horrific acts of the hollicost real. The movie progressively got worse as Bruno became better friends with shmall and you could just see what was coming. It got even harder to watch as Bruno got stuck in the camp and was being lead to the gas chambers.

Ethan Kaphammer said...

I think that this movie does a really good job at forcing the viewer to examine the life of a Nazi's family and son, a perspective I have not yet thought about in this course. It made me realize that many of the Nazi's families may have had no idea what was really going on at the time, and also like what Lindsay said how easy it was for the younger children to be brainwashed. Bruno was the perfect perspective of a completely innocent child who was old enough to feel sympathy for the kid and want to help him, and young enough to have not been listening to the propaganda and to not know what was going on at the camp. Through his eyes, his friend is just another child that he wants to play with, and society has set a barrier between them for differences that he does not understand. He views the kid for who he really is and not a monster like the others because he wasn't properly exposed to the propaganda. It helped to show that the kids really weren't so different, regardless of what the Nazis thought. It helped to show how differently the boys were treated simply because one was born a Jew and the other was not. I liked how Bruno's perspective was used to expose the evils of the camps. He is only trying to help his friend find his dad, and is swept up into the gas chambers and dies naked and crammed because of his kind heart. It really shows how what the Nazis are doing is horrible because the movie takes you in to meet and love Bruno, and then when he dies it's incredibly upsetting, but even then the fact is he was just one death in a room of at least a hundred innocent people dying with him. Each of their lives were just as important as his, even though we did not examine their personal stories as well. I hope that the son's death shows the father that what he is doing is absolutely disgusting and wrong, which he should have realized a long time ago. Instead of just thinking of what he's doing as "work" now he may realize that each and every life is just as valuable as his son's. Overall, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was a very powerful and effective film, especially with using an innocent perspective to convey the Nazi's incredible evils.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Ethan. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was a very powerful and effective film, especially with using an innocent perspective to convey the Nazi's incredible evils.

John Covino said...

I have seen this movie once a few years ago and I didn't understand what it was really about, but after having this class it has made me more aware and intrested in the Holocaust. This film was much more moving than the first time I watched it and knowing that the family didnt know exactly what was going on when they lived right near the camps and that their fatehr was helping it happen. The thought of Bruno wanting to help Shmuel find his fatehr was very sad because he was rethinking doing it once he realized it was not a fun camp and that Shmuel didn't want to be there.

John Covino said...

I agree with Marissa how it was interesting to see the Holocaust through a young Jewish boys point of view, and it really showed houw tough it was for them.

Mike Rodenbush said...

I was not in class that day.