The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Next on my Netflix queue, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas gave a good drama start to post-Thanksgiving movie day.

Follow up:

The movie's about a couple of 8-year old boys, one on either side of a fence in a WWII concentration camp in Poland. Of course, they've got totally different perspectives of the situation. Our German hero, Bruno, is innocently unaware of the events happening in his commandant father's work, muchless the direction of the Geman people in general. Our Jewish hero, Shmuel is aware of the hardships of the camp, but is either innocently unaware of the atrocities or is politely casual about some of them.

Bruno's family moes to Poland from Berlin, where he is alone and has no friends. His 12-year old sister is fast outgrowing childhood, and has joined in the Nazi youth group movement, but also allows Bruno to continue to be unaware. Since they are the only two children, Bruno sets about exploring, against his mother's direction. He finds his way to the farm he can see from his bedroom and engages in a friendship with Shmuel, through the holes in the electrified barbed-wire fence.

Shmule alludes to the hardships, but he is presumably innocently unaware of much of the happenings and motivations.

I give the film a couple of whole-hearted thumbs-up, but recommend it for a good drama day. While it's light-hearted (with all of the innocense thrown in there...) throughout, it is definately a war drama.