Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.
so this is a holocaust movie and i am going to say something i rarely say about holocaust movies:
THIS FUCKING SUCKED!
this was a shmaltzy, stupid, uneccessarily melodramatic, completely implausible, waste of time. INGLORIOUS BASTERDS is closer to the truth and more plausible than this piece of crap.
on the acting side, it starred david thewlis, remus lupin from the harry potter movies amongst other good films. he was sorta in cruise control for this one. on the other hand, vera farmiga is in it. she broke through with a great performance in the departed and has gone on to star in such films as joshua, feast of love, orphan, and this, so she pretty much used up all about that scorsese karma.
anywho, movie itself:
this subject matter of this film was dramatic enough: young boy discovers horrors of nazis. cheap sentimentality doesnt need to be poured on. the holocause was so horrific and shocking that the slightest bits of subtlety is enough to make the audience feel sickened and find humanity in the story of the struggle that the jewish people faced.
as a jew, this movie offended me. it painted a way more sympathetic portrait of nazis than i would like. second, it insulted the technical abilities of the nazis and the intelligence of the jews.
::SPOILERS::
in the climax of the film, the german digs a tiny hole in a couple minutes thereby breaking into the concentratio camp
needless to say, how unrealistic is this? you dont think that some of the jews in the camp would take advantage of this obvious design flaw? argh!
::END SPOILERS::
so there is no reason for a holocaust film to be subversive. the sympathy is there and doesnt need to be played up. just think of schindler's list. was that played up in the least? no. the images told the story without a need for overdramaticizing.
the one thing i can say in favor of the film was that it was only 85 minutes long. guess they ran out of sugar
i would like to say more but im afraid i would offensive and thereby get banned from blogspot. disagree with me? think im a fascist? im worse. im a critic and a snooty blogger with poor grammar. go fuck yourselves.
