The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Making Of Deleted Scenes Audio Commentary-Director & Author
Rating
Year Of Production	2008
Running Time	90:36
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (65:37)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Mark Herman
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Asa Butterfield Zac Mattoon O'Brien Domonkos Németh Henry Kingsmill Vera Farmiga Cara Horgan Zsuzsa Holl Amber Beattie László Áron David Thewlis Richard Johnson
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	James Horner

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Polish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	?
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Hungarian Polish Russian Greek Bulgarian Romanian Czech Slovak Ukranian Latvian Lithuanian Estonian English Audio Commentary Hungarian Audio Commentary Polish Audio Commentary Russian Audio Commentary Greek Audio Commentary Bulgarian Audio Commentary Romanian Audio Commentary Czech Audio Commentary Slovak Audio Commentary	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Without beating about the bush, the aim of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is to introduce a younger audience (I'd suggest the mid to upper primary school bracket) to the Holocaust. The film eases itself into the situation, and along the way explores a wide variety of key concepts of Nazi policy, through a generally conventional family drama. Whilst the film tackles particularly dark subject matter, it avoids graphic violence and eases into the severity of the situation and its implications. The film also does a good job of explaining that not all Germans living under the Nazi regime were necessarily evil and illustrates how the Nazi propaganda machine was used to brainwash the population. It's also a fairly decent flick for everyone else.

    The film tells the story of an eight year old lad named Bruno (Asa Butterfield) whose is awfully proud of his father (David Thewlis), a soldier, and his fatherland. Bruno's father has been assigned to manage a "work camp" for Jews in the country. The family, including Bruno's mother (Vera Farmiga) and sister, move to a large house a few kilometres from the camp.

    Bruno quickly finds there is nothing to do in the country, but is curious about the "farm" he can see from his bedroom window. The children are tutored/brainwashed two days a week by a local Nazi educator. His mother, who is wary of the purpose of the camp, has forbidden Bruno from playing anywhere near it and so he is left with nothing to do but play on a tire swing that has been set up by a Jewish prisoner, befriended by Bruno, working in the house. It is not long before Bruno sneaks off towards the camp and befriends another eight year old boy named Shmuel, who wears "striped pyjamas" and lives on the other side of the barbed wire fence.

    Over the course of weeks Bruno discovers that all the nice people around him may not always do the nicest of things.

    The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a fairly simple moral tale made infinitely more enjoyable thanks to some great performances. The child actors are surprisingly good, particularly Asa Butterfield, who is on screen in virtually every scene of the film. David Thewlis is magnificent in a challenging supporting role as a loving family man who also happens to be a conniving Nazi commander. He manages to move seamlessly between the good and evil characteristics of his character. Rupert Friend is also fairly decent as a young soldier stationed at the house with a rather nasty streak.

    The authenticity of the film is sacrificed significantly in favour of making the film more accessible. It seems rather hard to believe that the populace (even children) were quite so naive as the characters in the film or that a child would be given the type of labour Shmuel seems to be assigned. On a nitpicky level, the family dynamic in the film and a number of the characters comes across more like a traditional British family and characters than a German. Harking back to the film's goal to convey the themes of the Holocaust, that is probably a good thing for younger audiences but may irk some adult viewers.

    The story has been purposefully kept straight-forward so that it conveys itself clearly to children, and many adult viewers will probably get more satisfaction from more complex fare. That said, I doubt anyone will be disappointed provided they understand where the film is coming from. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas hits the intended mark dead-on.

Video

    The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The video looks decent, though far from reference material. The focus is slightly soft and excessive edge enhancement has been applied throughout. The film features a deliberately soft colour palette, and contains a decent level of contrast and good shadow detail. There is only a fine level of grain in the image.

    Mild macro blocking and colour banding is present in many of the backgrounds throughout the film, certainly enough to be noticeable on larger screens. There is no sign of film artefacts at any point.

    This is an RSDL disc, although the layer transition is not obvious during playback.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The film features English, French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kbps) audio tracks and an English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kbps) track.

    The audio is rather lacklustre for a surround track on a recent film. The mix is very front-heavy and sounds particularly compressed and a little muddy (which is likely a result of the low bitrate). Whilst you don't need big audio effects for a family drama, a bit more background environmental noise would have been nice. The surround noise is quite soft and fails to create an immersive environment. The subwoofer barely gets a flat thud throughout.

    The dialogue is reasonably clear and easy to understand. The sound looks to be well synchronised to the video.

    The film features a good piano-driven orchestral score that supports the film well. Alas, like the rest of the mix, it could sound clearer in the mix.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Behind the Fence Making of Featurette (19:40)

    A decent 'Making Of' featurette that covers all aspects of production, including the acting, characters, costumes, sets. It bangs on about the importance of the film a little too much for my liking, but at least that isn't all it does.

Deleted Scenes (6:00)

    Five deleted and extended scenes, with optional commentary. An interesting addition, although none of the snippets are particularly inspiring - in fact, reading between the lines, many were wisely cut so as not to over-preach the messages in the film.

Audio Commentary- Director Mark Herman and Author John Boyne

    A stilted commentary, peppered with lengthy pauses, that pretty much talks through the happenings of the story and little else. John Boyne's comments on the development of the story are marginally interesting, but for the most part this commentary is not worth the effort.

    The Region 4 and Region 1 editions are virtually identical, the only difference being the language tracks, subtitles and PAL/NTSC formatting. The Region 1 edition only includes a single English Audio track and English and Spanish subtitles.

    Though it is ripe for a cynical retitling to 'Disney presents The Holocaust For Beginners', The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas succeeds in being both a film suitable for introducing a younger audience to that difficult historic period and being a decent film in its own right. The film occasionally paints things a little too black-and-white, but is particularly commendable for not copping out and toning down the severity of the situation.

    The video transfer is decent, but not without minor issues. The audio is rather lacklustre, however.

    The disc includes a reasonable package of extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall