The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

Things have been rough, and I’m not doing much better. I continue to being tired of my family and of this house all the time, feeling clueless at university, missing my cat who would snuggle with me, even in this sickening Summer heat, and make it all better, and so on.

And I’ll be turning 20 years old next Sunday, on the 28th. I was really excited about it in the beginning of the year, the year I’d turn 20. Not so much anymore though.

But I’ve started trying to arrange a small dinner party/get together thing with a few friends anyway; small mostly because I have an important exam the next day. I’m not sure it’ll work out though, I did get a couple of responses from people who said they’d be up for it, but most don’t seem very eager. I have been somewhat negligent, so I can’t really blame them. We’ll see.

Anyway, I was feeling a bit worse than sulky today, and needed some sort of distraction. Something that’d keep my interest for a while. I decided to force myself to watch a movie. Even if not in the mood for it, I knew I’d probably end up enjoying whatever I decided on. The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas it was; it had been on Amazon’s bestseller lists for a while, but I never really paid much attention to it. It was a book to begin with, by an author I’d never heard about before, John Boyne. I don’t remember ever seeing the book anywhere to be honest, but the movie showed up on all lists and on all emails I got from Amazon. Since I’ve been proven wrong on my cynicism towards bestseller lists on Amazon before, I decided this would be a good time to get into something from there, specially something thought-provoking.

I knew it was going to be a sad story, about the holocaust. The image on the cover of the DVD itself shows two boys – one clean and well dressed and the other with a prisoner type suit – separated by a barb wired fence. Of course it was going to be a sad story. But I thought it’d be a hopeful one as well… I mean, two boys from two very different sides, friends despite everything going on around them. Sad, thought-provoking, and hopeful was what I was expecting.

And the movie was great.

The main character’s innocence was almost sweet at times, even in that context. For example, he saw a terrain surrounded by a big fence from his bedroom in the new house his family had moved in to, and thought it was a farm. Sweet, but saddening as well of course, because we know better. Of course it wasn’t a farm, it was a work camp.

That’s where the story begins anyway, with the arrival of the family to that new house. The boy – Bruno – is told not to explore, but does anyway, and eventually gets close enough to the “farm” and starts interacting with a lonely boy who lives there, Shmuel. The story starts unfolding and the two boys – always separated by that fence – become friends.

And throughout most of the movie, I thought that was it. That the boys would remain friends in all that adversity, that Bruno would realize what was actually happening, that there would be either a revolution or some drama with Bruno’s father, who was a Nazi officer himself. After all, it’s fiction, not historical fiction. And I thought that, whatever the outcome, it’d be fairly simple.

Until the last five minutes of the movie that is. I’d never spoil this for anyone, so all I’ll say is that I couldn’t breathe right for a while, and that there was a lot of sobbing. Never expected it or saw it coming, never. I still feel stunned by the outcome of the movie. Talk about distracted, I hardly did anything else during the day. This story is going to stay with me for a while. Both the movie and the book are more or less affordable at Amazon, so I’ll be getting them as soon as possible, specially the book.

In the meanwhile, do get the movie and watch it, whether you’re planning on reading the book or not. Totally recommend it here.