I just watched this movie just now and trust me, it was one of the saddest movies I've EVER watched.
Here's the plot anyway:
SS officer Ralf & his wife Elsa move from Berlin to the countryside with their children: 12 year old Gretel & 8 year old Bruno, after Ralf's promoted to commandant of a Nazi concentration camp, implied to be Auschwitz. Bruno's confined to the front grounds of their new home & craves companionship and adventure. He disobeys his parents by sneaking out & trekking thru the woods to an isolated, unguarded corner of the camp, where he befriends Shmuel, a Jewish boy his own age. They meet in the same spot everyday.
Bruno starts bringing Shmuel food & plays games with him thru the barbed wire fence. Shmuel gradually reveals to Bruno the truth of what's behind the fence, telling him that he & his family have been imprisoned & are forced to wear the "striped pyjamas" because they're Jews. On hearing this, Bruno remembers what he's been taught about Jewish people, but realizes that Shmuel is not evil & continues their friendship.
Bruno and Gretel get a tutor, Herr Liszt, who pushes an agenda of antisemitism & nationalist propaganda. Gretel becomes increasingly fanatical in her support for the Third Reich, covering her bedroom wall with Nazi propaganda posters, much to the confusion of Bruno. She flirts with SS Lieutenant Kurt, her father's subordinate, as her budding sexuality becomes fixated on the ideal of the German soldier. Bruno remains skeptical of Nazi Propaganda, because all Jews that Bruno knows, including the family's servant Pavel, do not resemble Liszt's teachings.
One day, Kurt & Elsa were standing in the front yard when smoke (from corpses being burned) floats up from the camp. Ralf had sworn to secrecy about the camp's true aims & hadn't told Elsa what was happening. Later, a blazing row between Elsa & Ralf occurs. It's insinuated that Elsa revealed who told her about the camp's secret. Ralf interrogates Kurt about his father's loyalty to the Nazis. This puts Kotler in a bad mood & when Pavel accidentally knocks over his glass while trying to fill it up, he drags him into another room & the sounds of the servant being beaten to death are heard. The following morning, the family maid's shown scrubbing bloodstains off the floor & Elsa appears as though she has been crying.
Gradually, Ralf's convinced that the house is no place for a child to grow up & makes arrangements for Elsa & the children to leave the area for a "safer" place with relatives, while he remains to "finish his work" at the camp. The day before Bruno's due to leave, Shmuel reveals that his father has gone missing in the camp. It is implied that he was taken into a gas chamber. Seeing an ideal opportunity to redeem himself for wronging Shmuel previously, Bruno digs a hole beneath the fence, changes into prison clothing that Shmuel has stolen for him, & enters the camp to help Shmuel find his father.
Bruno's horrified by what he sees: the dehumanization, starvation & sickness are the antithesis of the Theresienstadt-esque propaganda film that had shaped his prior impressions. While searching for Shmuel's father, they're rounded up with others & marched to "the showers", which are the gas chambers.
At the house, Bruno's absence is noticed. After Gretel & Elsa discover the open window Bruno went thru & the remains of food Bruno was taking for Shmuel, Ralf and his guards mount a search to find him. They enter the camp, searching for Bruno. In the gas chambers, the inmates—including Bruno and Shmuel—are told to remove their clothes, amid speculation that it is only for a shower. They are packed into the gas chambers, where Bruno & Shmuel take each others' hands.
A soldier pours some Zyklon B pellets into the chamber. The prisoners start yelling and banging on the metal door. Ralf, still with his guards, arrives at an empty dormitory, signalling to him that a gassing is taking place. Ralf cries out his son's name and Elsa and Gretel fall to their knees. The film ends by showing the closed door of the now-silent gas chamber...
Man... You guys seriously gotta watch it. It's one of the most touching/sad and realistic movie I've ever watched. Luckily it wasn't based on a true story if not I'm going to cry my eyeballs out even more. Now my eyes hurt cuz I cried a lot just now. You guys have no idea how many bucketfuls of tears I cried just now! :'(
My rating for this movie: ★★★★★
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