Posted on 11/13/2008 9:13:25 AM PST by End Times Sentinel
Certainly with the many movies made about the tragedy of the Holocaust--several which have been done brilliantly--it could be easy to steer clear of yet another bleak look at the horror of that time in history. Yet if there was any "little indie movie that could" out there in the cineplex right now, it has to be the gut-wrenching, amazing film "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas." It is getting some buzz-- especially from critics in religious circles--and it is even receiving some celebrity endorsements from folks like Amy Grant. So while the movie is in very limited release, I am optimistic that it will slowly begin to play wider in the coming week, and I encourage everyone to find it and see it.
Just as the Oscar-winning "Life is Beautiful" found a unique, though perhaps improbable, premise to reexamine the Holocaust, so too does "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas." The story is a narrow one, told solely through the eye of one boy, Bruno, who has been forced to leave his upscale life to move with his family to Auschwitz. The boy literally lives on one side of the fence of the prison camp and spends time daily watching the people on the other side of the fence--people who always wear striped pajamas.
Bruno's father works for Hitler and has moved his family to Auschwitz on direct orders, yet he and his wife manage to keep young Bruno from truly understanding anything about his surroundings or what is happening there. One day, however, Bruno befriends a Jewish boy who live in the camp, and unbeknownst to his parents, a series of events unfold that lead to a devastating conclusion.
What gives the film it's eerie power is the way the movie paints such a picture of family normalcy against the backdrop of atrocity. Bruno's family means well. They don't seem like monsters. But because they think they can be near evil, or even participate in evil to a degree, without being impacted personally, their live are ruined by the lie. It examines the way we justify our actions and the price of innocence lost. Most of all it is a prophetic reminder that sometimes it is too late to decide to do the right thing.
The only movie that I can remember about genocidal commies was The Killing Fields (1984) which--if memory serves correctly--never made a big deal about the fact that Pol Pot was a commie.
The irony here also is that the Nazis were commies...but with a different central theme: for Mao, Lenin and Stalin, it was class division, while for Hitler it was race/ethnicity. But, that's why I do not split hairs on this issue: the enemy is BIG GOVERNMENT from WHERE EVER it comes.
As I tell my kids, as bad as GM, Coca Cola or Pfizer can be, they will never kick in your bedroom door at 4 in the morning in order to take you away.
Of course much of Germany was still rubble in the mid-50s, and we got to see a good bit of it. I was seven when I visited one of the Nazi concentration camps. It wasn't until we were actually there that my parents told me what it was. The most prominent part left standing were the ovens, much of the rest of the camp having been removed. To this day I remember the German guard standing off a way and looking down at his feet, unable to make eye contact.
Half a century later the recollection of that experience still sickens and enrages me. When the left, almost always lacking in knowledge or perspective, casually refer to those of us on the right as Nazis... it is all I can do to restrain myself.
I think the babies in their previously warm and protected womb being ripped to pieces alive or scorched to death with saline solution or born alive with only their head left yet to be born and having an instrument stuck in their neck and turn to break their spinal cord or born despite an botched abortion and being put on a roof or shoved in a garbage bag to suffer die alone would differ with you.
I agree. When I was a kid, my grandfather had an attic full of old Life magazines from the 40's and 50's. To while away the boring afternoon, I and my brothers would troop upstairs and drag down armloads of magazines, then sit leafing through the pages. The pictures of concentration camp victims were graphic and horrifying, but they were undoctored, uncensored and real. I don't remember being traumatized, but I did develop a lifelong aversion to violence of all kinds. I can't bear to see anyone or anything suffer. I'll never forget those images.
Good point, well said. I obviously missed the point ClearCase_guy was trying to make.
It is amazing how formative an experience like that is and how it makes you, as an adult, consider the world around you and also consider others.
The left drives me nuts with this stuff also, especially considering that much of the way they operate would be more akin to fascism than anything the right does. Seems like the modus operandi for communism and fascism resemble each other significantly.
It seems to me as if Christians and Jews will be on the killing list of the next Meglamaniac who wants to rule the world. When you stop and consider the sort of victimization that is happening to Christians in California at the moment because they choose to exercise their right to vote in a particular direction it makes you wonder when these people will see the voting system as something to toss out ans start over again.
Blessings
Mel
Blessings
Mel
Dial it back, Deb! I agree that it is not a movie for young children. But there is an underlying and very currently chilling message in this movie.
While the young boy seems unaffected by his surroundings, being a normal 8-year-old boy who’s more interested in finding dragons and new caves, his 12-year-old sister shows the REAL Nazi sins. Worse yet, fast forward her transformation about 60 years and move it to North America, and let me know how things today are much different...
The best part about this movie as opposed to other Holocaust flicks (something I follow, as I have relatives who were there and even one or two who got out) is its subtlety. In “Schindler’s List”, Spielberg just beat you over the head with the brutality, and “Life is Beautiful” painted the Holocaust as an “alternate lifestyle”. All through this movie, the horror was just beyond reach, but always there.
I thought the ending, while you could see it coming, was still well done and thought-provoking. Of course, my moonbat movie pals wanted some follow-up scenes to see how the end would affect the other main characters. This, of course, was typical of the current “tie up everything nice and clean” movie making and I, for one, was glad the director didn’t fall into this trap.
If someone ever did “Aquariums of Pyongyang”, it could be a hit because it has a happy ending. But I’m not sure today’s liberals want us to see how a government can inflict so much horror on its own citizens. We might get ideas.
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