Creating a piece of entertainment about a subject as unseemly as the Holocaust is tricky business. With all apologies to SCHINDLER’S LIST, the topic was probably most effectively disseminated in the 1978 TV miniseries HOLOCAUST, starring Joseph Bottoms, Meryl Streep, and James Woods. That project, created by longtime TV director Marvin Chomsky, whose credits date back to the early 1960s, was cinematic in every aspect and provided a thorough overview of one family’s plight through the entire ordeal, starting with the ascent of the Nazi Party in pre-World War II Germany.Other attempts have been successful in varying degrees, usually while approaching the horrifying events from other perspectives, such as in Roberto Benigni’s LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. In the recent release, THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS, we witness the unfolding of wartime Germany from the point-of-view of a child. Reminiscent of John Boorman’s HOPE AND GLORY and Steven Spielberg’s EMPIRE OF THE SUN, both of which assumed the embodiment of a child for its reference point, BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS, based on 37-year-old Irishman John Boyne’s novel, selectively chooses an innocent German boy as its protagonist, through which we see the events of the time unfold, unbeknownst to this character, the son of a high-ranking Nazi Party official.

In fact, the boy so firmly believes in the goodness of his dad, with only limited clues to the horrors occurring around him, through the whole length of the story, the boy is completely oblivious, as allegedly were many German citizens, to the evil misdoings being undertaken by their own countrymen. Even when the boy, ably played by youngster Asa Butterfield, interacts with the titular boy in “striped pajamas,” his concentration camp friend, he is both unaware and misinformed about his new friend’s situation.

Expertly crafted by English director Mark Herman, who also adapted the screenplay, all of the film’s performances and nuances are truthful and believable, especially as seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy of due privilege. David Thewlis as the boy’s father and Vera Farmiga as his mother paint realistic portraits as Germans caught up on either side of crucial issues of the time. All of the other parts, right down to a house assistant who lives in the nearby camp, are meticulously cast and performed.

Needless to say, no story about the Holocaust can end well, though in movies such as the aforementioned SCHINDLER’S LIST and LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, good things can be derived from tragedy. In BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS, we dread the inevitable for its main characters, and despite the naivity of its approach, we constantly feel as though impending doom can happen at any time. However, due to Herman’s measured take on the material, it is not until the film’s final fade out that we have been treated to the entirety of both the story and the unthinkable events that are less than a lifetime away from the present. Parents be warned: despite the youthful cues in the title and appearance of this film, it is wholly NOT meant for a children’s audience.