Original title: The boy in the stripped pajamas Origin: Great Britain / USA. Duration: 94 min.
Color. Language: English. Subtitled
TECHNICAL TEAM
Director: Mark Herman
Writer: Mark Hermann, on the novel by John Boyne
Writer: Mark Hermann, on the novel by John Boyne
Music: James Horner
Photography: Benoit Delhomme
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Zac Bully O'Brien, Domonkos Németh, Henry Kingsmill, Vera Farniga, Cara Horgan, Amber Beattie, Laszlo Aron, David Thewlis, Richard Johnson, Sheila Hancock, Attila Egyed, Rupert Friend Shot
on location in Hungary: The Orphanage EOT, Kerepesi Cemetery. Study Lloyd, Budaors, Mafilm, castle Sacellary, Budafok, Zuglo, and in Budapest by BBC Films, Heyday Films and Miramax Films
COMMENTS Translating the screen from the novel by John Boyne, which set in the years of World War II, describes the transfer of Bruno and his family to a mansion near a concentration camp, from which the father was named commander. Bruno is a boy of eight years of powerful imagination, which is bored at home all day .. This is how your attention is captured by what he believes is a neighboring farm, although very rare and that all workers wear a striped pajamas unconventional. Excited to be an explorer, and without the knowledge of their parents, get close to the fence of the camp, where she meets a boy his age, Shmuel, boarding there. Neither understands what is happening, but between them, and in secret, a friendship emerges.
is a worthy adaptation of the original work, a cruel kind of fable, the main difficulty was to preserve the child's point of view, which holds the role naive, but that images could be difficult to accept. In addition, the novel was somewhat overrated in the accumulation of repetitive mistakes. For all this the director and adapted screenplay author, Mark Herman, plays with the idea that the young protagonist is a little closer to the horror of the truth, which allowed betray the book, also expands the role of mother, so that even an adult begins to get rid of his blindness. The film is followed with interest, especially through the child, super Asa Butterfield, and somewhat stereotypical father, an evil Nazi or the simplicity with which it portrayed the sister ( www.decine21.com )
The film is the chilling and poignant film version of best-selling book by John Boyne. With a narrative tone fairly light, Boyne's book raises a naive fable focusing on the unlikely friendship that evolves between Bruno, the son of a Nazi commandant, and Shmuel, a Jewish boy, arrested in a death camp. Boyne adopting a child record the best and most restrictive sense of the adjective. Despite the harrowing story it conveys, there is a bias in the text of a fairy tale that helps to diffuse the horror.
Although the film is produced by Miramax, looks brand BBC Films. The latter certainly gives character. Like other filmmakers of the same company, the conduct of Mark Herman, a bit cold, clinging to classicism and stacks up well and the same goes for art direction, sets, built in Hungary, are excellent contribute to the credibility of the story. The cast excels Asa Butterfield in the role of Bruno, which makes it very credible that introverted child, dreamy and somewhat averse to the doctrine which holds his family. David Thewlis plays his father, a character in which alternate without apparent contradiction, tenderness, refinement and fanatical barbarism. Although its role is secondary, the real winner of the cast is Rupert Friend, stuck in the skin of an SS officer who arrives to freeze the blood of the viewer.
Overall, we are facing a very successful film, warmly praised by British critics, but has a drawback if you think the average viewer: the devastating sadness of its final stretch. Where The Pianist or Schindler's List leaves a loophole for hope and redemption of man, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas reading poses a sincere, serious and heinous definitely the Holocaust. As was true. ( www.guzmanurrero.es )
GENERAL
Berlin 1940's. Bruno, eight years, returns home after playing with his friends at school to find a flurry of activity: her father, a Nazi officer, has been promoted and his mother is preparing a party. Bruno does not understand what the new place since his father's fate is out of Berlin. The entire family will have to move to the country, forcing him to leave home and friends she loves. His fear of loneliness is confirmed when the family arrives at their new, isolated and left home.
Bruno has trouble getting used to her new life and increasingly bored. No children to play with and her mother forbidden to explore around the house. Her older sister, Gretel, do not bother to speak: she is too busy with her dolls or talking to one of the men of his father, Lieutenant Kotler. Bruno is intrigued by the existence of a strange sort of farm you see from the window of his room, where all its inhabitants seem to wear striped pajamas. W hen you try to know more about the 'farm' tell him to forget it and forbids him there. We know something that Bruno does not know is that the 'farm' is a death camp. Her mother ignores it. Cree who is living next to an internment camp or work. Her husband has sworn never to reveal their true purpose: to kill a plant designed to carry out the 'Final Solution', the systematic extermination of the Jewish people.
Bruno befriends Pavel, who works in the kitchen, wearing striped pajamas under her apron. While her mother is out of the house, Bruno fell off the swing in the garden and making a cut on his knee. And Pavel who heals the wound. Pavel tells Bruno that was dedicated to the practice of medicine and smiles when a child says that should not be very good if I needed practice. Fter several weeks hanging around the house, Bruno ends up defying his mother and sneaks out of the house from the backyard in search of adventure. Wander through the woods and runs into a fence. On the other hand, a little boy with a striped pajamas debris being unloaded from a truck. Bruno is so happy to have found someone their age to play with, it starts to go every day to Shmuel, his new friend, without telling him or his parents or his sister.
In the following weeks, Bruno begins to be increasingly disturbed by what he sees and what he hears at home and what he discovers in his secret life at the wire with Shmuel. As his tutor says that Jews are the embodiment of evil, its connection with Shmuel is becoming increasingly strong. Witnesses the brutal beating Pavel, the kitchen boy, suffering at the hands the unpredictable Lieutenant Kotler. Furthermore, her mother has begun to realize some things after a joke in bad taste of the young lieutenant to disclose the true source of foul smoke from the chimneys of the field. Bruno also feel somewhat confused by the changes that her sister is suffering, influenced by the lessons of his tutor and the attraction to Lt. Kotler, has lined the walls of his room with Nazi propaganda. The increasingly rarefied atmosphere of his home, along with the stories that make Shmuel tells Bruno wonder if something sinister is happening to the other side of the fence, and if your father is really a good man who had always believed. Bruno is surprised to see Shmuel cleaning glassware in your home and gives her a cake, but Lieutenant Kotler surprised them together and Shmuel accused of stealing food. Instead of defending his friend from the arrogant soldier, Lieutenant Bruno said he had never seen Kotler Shmuel. Later, tormented by remorse, Bruno visit the fence several times to apologize to his friend, but the boy in the striped pajamas does not appear. When Samuel returns at last, his face is marked by a terrible wound caused by the fist of Lieutenant Kotler, and Bruno is deeply sorry for him. However, Shmuel forgives him and resume their friendship. Meanwhile, the relationship between the mother and the father of Bruno has become so tight that her father decides to send his family home of an aunt who lives in Heidelberg. The move, which Bruno had wanted desperately since they arrived, is a blow for him as he realizes he will have to leave his new best friend.
In one of his last meetings, Bruno learns that Shmuel's father takes three days to appear. Bruno promises to help his friend to find his father. He seems like a good opportunity to compensate for having betrayed to the lieutenant. On the move to Heidelberg, Bruno escapes to see Shmuel charged with a shovel and ready to embark on one last adventure. But once you cross the fence, Bruno is immersed in an eerie race that will decide his fate, his friend and of the innocent is on the other side of the fence.
THE ORIGIN OF THE MOVIE
fable is intended to provide a unique perspective on the consequences of prejudice, hatred and violence inflicted on innocent people, particularly children, during wartime. Through the eyes of a German boy of eight years, safe from the terrible reality of war, we witness the forbidden friendship that evolves between Bruno, the son of a Nazi commandant, and Shmuel, a Jewish boy imprisoned in a field concentration. Although a fence separating them physically, the lives of children just inevitably intertwined.
"It goes without saying that a fictional story that takes place in a place and at the time of the Holocaust always raises blisters, and any author who decides to write on this subject must know very well what your intentions before you start. And it may be particularly important in the case of a book written for children, "said John Boyne, author of the book. "To me, an Irish writer of 34 years, I had the feeling that the only respectful way to approach this subject was through innocence, a tale told from the point of view of a naive child who can not comprehend the horrors environment in which they live. I think that innocence is what can best understand someone of my generation in relation to the horror of that time. " Boyne
continues: "What happens here, asks Bruno. Why are there so many people on the other side of the fence? They may be simple questions, but basically, are not these the questions we raised today? And maybe that's the work of writers or artists, continue to seek answers, make sure that people keep asking questions so that no one ever forget why they had made a first time. "
David Heyman, producer of Harry Potter, had long been interested in novel though was the director and screenwriter Mark Herman who bought the book rights. When he and Herman met and discovered they had very similar ideas about the project, decided to work together. Both acknowledged that a fictional story told in the context of the Holocaust could be very controversial, but both are passionate about the idea of \u200b\u200bbringing to the screen a compelling dramatic story, yet with an important message accessible and timeless. Both were in agreement with Boyne in any attempt to elucidate the dark side of the Nazi era for future generations was as legitimate as necessary: \u200b\u200bNo one should forget the history or repeat it.
"When I read the book, I immediately imagined the movie, "says Mark Herman. "But I thought I would be very complicated because it was a very sensitive material."
"One of the characters in Graham Greene says that hate is lack of imagination," says David Heyman. "I firmly believe in it, and I also believe that the magnitude of the Holocaust, all the barbarity, the number of dead, the shattered lives ... all that is impossible to measure, because the numbers are truly inconceivable. If you try to explain to a child what happened at a time not long ago, the figures are too high to understand. I think John Boyne has found an incredibly emotional and effectively address the issue by focusing its story on two children and a family. "
Heyman goes on to say: "I attract a lot of deeply human stories, and foremost this is a human story. While the Holocaust is a story that takes place in Germany in the 1940's, for me, this story is timeless. With all the conflicts which we live today, both in Rwanda, Somalia, Palestine, Israel, Darfur, Zimbabwe or Iraq, I think this story is as relevant now as at any other time in history. We are deeply touched both me and thousands of readers around the world. These children have the potential and the ability to overcome cultural differences and identity and thus demonstrate that humans can get along if they are encouraged to hate anyone, governments, institutions and the media can cultivate and grow the conflict and mistrust. They are very modern ideas with universal relevance, and I think this story makes them accessible to everyone. "
"The Prize laureate Elie Wiesel says that if you have not been there, do not write about it," says author John Boyne. "And in a way, I agree with him. But at the same time tell us that we should not forget. So I think that as the decades go by, it is the responsibility of artists to find new ways to tell this story, to remember the world all the people who died. If you approach the issue without exploiting it, trying not to trivialize but to tell the story another way to reach other audiences, you've achieved your goal. Children who have read my book I tell them: 'If you have moved, if I was interested in the history of these two guys, here's a list of books you should read. " And these books are of figures such as Wiesel, Primo Levi and Anne Frank, writers who lived through the Holocaust in their own flesh and they have the moral authority to talk about it. I hope that artists today can get kids interested enough to want to read more. "
All members of the production team behind (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) were clear that they were shooting a fictional story and not a documentary. However, as the script is historical, all were very meticulous in respecting the context in which it operates.
"We are extremely concerned about the authenticity," said Mark Herman. "When we were doing the adaptation, I found that the concentration camp commanders vowed to secrecy under threat of death so that their activities were top secret. They were forbidden to tell anyone, including their own families, in what his 'work'. This was helpful when writing the script, especially to explain why the captain had not told his wife anything about the extermination program: She believes that this is a work camp and discover the truth by accident. Today, the public has the advantage of knowing what really happened, so some things will be obvious. The spectators do not understand that women do not know it: he was living next to a concentration camp, so I had to know. But some people do not know anything. In Auschwitz, for example, the wife of commander lived practically on top of the field for two years without having any idea that this was an extermination camp. The amazing thing about this story is that these two boys, one on each side of the fence, do not know what is going on. "
"Mark has been placed on the history of the family by giving the adult point of view of the mother, who is gradually discovering what happens on the field. That part of the story is much less developed in the book, "says co-producer Rosie Alison of Heyday Films, which has coordinated the historical documentation of the film. "He also added a Nazi propaganda film that we discover during our work of documentation. This is a disgusting 14-minute short film aimed at showing what life was like in the concentration camps, activities recreation, food friendly, smiling faces. Mark decided to shoot a film version that Bruno could get an idea of \u200b\u200bwhat it was. Thus thought I knew what was happening in the field since they had seen the short film. This makes for a moment to regain his faith in his father. "
Alison continues: "It is a story based on historical facts, and we have treated with the utmost respect," he says. "This is a story told in a rather indirect. Almost until the end, all you see is from the other side of the fence, and what happens in the camp does not become evident until the final scenes. The most controversial aspect of the film, and perhaps where we have allowed some artistic license, is the presence of Shmuel in the concentration camp. This is certainly part of the movie in which fiction and reality are far apart, because the terrible reality is that most children who came to the camps were killed immediately. However, in 1944, Auschwitz in particular children and is survived some isolated cases of children who remained alive, both for medical experiments with them to specific jobs (like in the documented case of two children to which remained alive in Treblinka to feed the ducks at the pond). There well-known photographs of children surviving to reach the liberation of the camps, but of course I usually skip the transport used in arriving at the gas chambers. So the story of Shmuel can be somewhat unlikely. "
"History tends to repeat itself and I think it is very important to talk about all these issues, whatever and whoever, as long as the emotional content is real and true," says producer David Heyman. "This is the story of a normal family of ordinary people who, through ignorance, innocence and unwavering obedience to authority, regardless of the cruelty of that authority, embodied to perfection the "banality of evil" of Hannah Arendt. I hope that young people and the rest of the audience comes to thrill the movie so they can better understand the price paid by the tragedy and consequences for those who lived this tragedy, whether the perpetrators and victims.
The film has been made with great honesty and passion people feel a tremendous respect and admiration for those who survived, as well as those who did not. I think it is very important to keep this story alive in order not to repeat, any step we take that can change the world view of a person worth
CAST AND CHARACTERS
says director Mark Herman: "We saw so many young players before deciding who would play Bruno, the son of the camp commandant." Yañade: "The first film I received was that of Asa Butterfield and was the third person I saw. I looked fantastic, but we are looking for because we wanted to ensure that we do not we let anyone. At the end we decided it would be him because he needed a child to eat the camera. Asa does. Has the perfect blend of innocence and curiosity that the role requires, in addition to penetrating eyes and observers. "
"Mark helped me a lot telling me what I had to do," says 10-year actor Asa Butterfield. "The only thing I like about making movies is having to repeat scenes over and over again, but I guess it is the filming!" Before working on this film, Asa knew something of the historical context of the film. "I knew some things," he says. "But I knew it was called the Holocaust. I almost started to mourn when I read the script. " On the casting
Shmuel, the Jewish boy on the other side of the fence, Herman says: "I saw Jack Scanlon as the selection process was well advanced and had spent hundreds of children. Jack can move without being too sentimental, has a certain natural dignity. But it was necessary to verify that our Bruno chemical produced before electing to play the role of Shmuel. When we reduce the pool of applicants to only three, we tried different pairs with Asa. Jack and Asa did very well together. "
Jack Scanlon, eight years on the big screen debut in the role of Shmuel. His account of the time it completed with a conclusion that shows you have understood perfectly the injustice experienced by the victims: "The Germans lost to the British in the First World War. So Hitler wanted revenge by taking all the Jews and the people who were against the Germans putting them in 'ghettos'. Then they were taken to concentration camps. And Bruno believes that because the Jews are the best work. But in reality, Hitler's internal punishment. Although it should be so, for what evil has he done? "
To Gretel, the role of Bruno's sister, Herman chose the young actress Amber Beattie. "He was fantastic in the auditions," recalls Herman. "And like Asa, Amber became the model that served as a comparison for the other candidates. But neither could overcome it, remained head of the pack throughout the process. Amber is very sincere, and like Gretel, despite Bruno despises and is attracted by the German Youth, as the story develops, manages to gain our sympathy. " Amber
The teenager cried when reading the book and saw the movie first. Its message is simple but sound: "I think the Iección of the film is not to judge others, treating everyone as equals. Because in reality we are all equal. " Producer David Heyman
was impressed by Mark Herman rapport with the cast, especially his ability to communicate with younger members. "It's very easy to consent or to treat them with condescension," says Heyman, "but Mark did not. He treated children as people mature in their own decisions and ideas were treated with the respect they deserve and I think the children responded according to the deal. They realized they were doing something serious and dramatic, something that required effort and attention, it was worth and had a great value. As a result, they tried to work with the same respect with which they treated them Mark. Director Mark Herman is a very compassionate - she feels a real compassion for the characters I write and what you direct actors. "
U.S. actress Vera Farmiga plays Elsa, Bruno's mother and wife of the commander. Director Mark Herman wanted to take advantage of the chameleon qualities that had attracted interest from directors such as Martin Scorsese and Anthony Minghella: "What attracted me was how Vera put on the skin of the characters he plays. It's totally different, almost unrecognizable in all his films. Appeared every morning on the set as a lady of the 40's and was virtually impossible to recognize Vera Farmiga. Europe has a very physical and is a fantastic actress. Has succeeded in capturing the moral ambiguity and brings a humanity and compassion very particular to the role of the wife of the commander who is slowly discovering the gas chambers. I think Vera and David have done a much better job of they had never expected. " Vera Farmiga
conducted a thorough investigation for his role, and his portrayal of Elsa is an amalgam of all journals and newspapers that read: "It's kind of mixture of all women in the Third Reich from Hitler to Emmy Paula Goering , Magda Goebbels, Eva Braun and Leni Riefenstahl, all of them. I also studied a lot of propaganda about motherhood, the cult of motherhood and what it meant, what was required to mothers and what their position at that time. "
"In a way, Elsa is the guardian of the fence, its mission is to hide its existence and what is behind it, and when Bruno discovers the fence, its mission is to keep them away, "says Farmiga. "There is dialogue in the novel, in my opinion, is the key to the character of Elsa, shortly after arriving at the house next to the concentration camp, Bruno said:" I think this has not been a good idea. " And his mother says, 'We can not afford the luxury of thinking'. "
Farmiga continues: "Elsa does not think. You do not have their own opinions, does not analyze anything. Decide to ignore everything and just worry about the safety of his family and his social position, everything else is on the sidelines. It is a kind of accomplice and assistant in regard to the ideals of her husband, their desires, their values \u200b\u200band ambitions. But when it starts to open their eyes and realize what is happening, when it begins to investigate, he begins to lose respect for her husband and mistrust him. At the end of rebels. Decides to condemn what is happening. Even attempts to show her husband the horror that is responsible. But it's too late: I think his initial behavior by refusing to see what was happening in front of their noses, on the other side of the fence, it costs a life. In a way it till the fate of their children, because when you start to investigate it's too late. Sensed something, know they are trying very badly to people who are hospitalized. But does not want to, not because it wants to see implicate her and her husband. "
Farmiga says that the film will attract and interest the public today in many ways: "The character of Elsa, his indifference, apathy and ignorance initials, is crucial to know how they could kill many people in the eyes of all the world without anyone knowing. Because this is happening all over the world. This story could have been based in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo or Darfur. That racial hatred still exists. "
David Thewlis plays Bruno's father, the commander of a concentration camp." I've always been a big fan of David ", says Herman." His role is one of the most difficult because in the first part plays a very loving father and human. Although viewers know exactly what this father. In these circumstances play a man who leads a normal family life is very complicated. David overboard the role of loving man. You do not understand that someone like that can have a dark side. "
"I think the difference in this script is that it is seen from a German perspective, through the eyes of a German child. At first it seems that my role, that of a loving father (even though the audience knows from the beginning what their labor), may inspire some compassion, "says David Thewlis. "The challenge is not to interpret a typical Nazi evil has two faces. In my research I discovered that my character was based on real events. In the film does not mention what camp is, but obviously that is not Auschwitz, because then it would be interpreted to Rudolf Hoess, who had five children who grew up in Auschwitz, where they could see the crematorium. And also I play Joseph Goebbels, which took six children into the bunker at the end of the war. He and his wife the poisoned and then committed suicide. It is unthinkable that a story like this was real. It is a work of fiction, but based on quite plausible situations. We have only widened the gap between home and country, they were really only a few meters. " Thewlis
continues: "For years investigating not so much for a movie. But I felt compelled to do so. Usually I'm inspired by someone who is part of my life in some way or someone I have known and compare it with the character trying to implement its features. But I've never met anyone who resembles the character I play in this movie. It is quite difficult to think of a loving father says goodbye to his children after breakfast, and goes (literally) next door to spend the day surrounded by terrible atrocities. How can you get used to that? "As Vera
Farmiga, Thewlis read many private documents written by architects and perpetrators of the Final Solution to the time to prepare for his role as commander of the camp: "I got a letter that Rudolf Hoess had written to his children just before his execution. The letter was on the kitchen table, and some neighbors had come to see me. He had not counted on what was working. Saw the letter and began to read, and when finished it looked at me and said, 'What more beautiful and charming letter written this man to your children! Who was he? Why going to die? Was he sick? ". I replied: 'Yes, I was VERY sick! '. There is no doubt that the letter is written by a man who feels a great love for their children, everything is very well expressed and very touching, almost poetic. Try to understand a human being, a sensitive human being who is able to do that. I have not found nothing to justify or forgive. But my job was to find any trace of humanity in the character and not what they are monsters. But they were human beings. And today, there are still people like them. "
"For me, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is interesting in many ways," says Thewlis. "It's my role, which is fairly straightforward, then there is my wife, accepts the idea of \u200b\u200ba concentration camp but gradually begins to realize that I am involved in the genocide, and appreciated the effect it has on our marriage. It is also my daughter, Gretel, who is attracted by the rhetoric, politics, the country. His flirtation with the young soldier is almost an ideological seduction. His father fully supports the Reich, but his mother hates everything that fascism means and he says openly. So within the same family we have five or six different views evolve over the film. It is also Bruno, whose point of view changes several times during the course of history until the end. In the film we witnessing the gradual disintegration of the family, and that is the punishment for the sins of the father. "
For the role of Lieutenant Kotler, Mark Herman elected the young British actor Rupert Friend. "It's an actor who could do anything," says Herman. "You can play a very nice person and another absolutely horrible. In this paper, is a horrible person. He has done a fantastic job. It's creepy and dangerously seductive. We fully understand that a girl's age Gretel may be attracted by him and what it represents. At the same time, Rupert reveals the high vulnerability of Lieutenant Kotler in the 'interrogation' of his father that develops during dinner. "
Lieutenant Kotler is the catalyst for romance Gretel with Nazi ideology (described memorably by Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper as 'a gigantic aberration Nordic') and the destruction of the marriage of the concentration camp commandant. Friend describes his character as a member of the "inner circle" of the family, "Kotler is the mother who tells what they are doing is burning the bodies of Jews," he says. "Therefore, Father Kotler blames the breakup of his family. Of course, the father is overseeing the atrocities, but that Kotler blames his wife finds out what happens. It's the end of Kotler's career, because his father sent him to the front line, which is practically a death sentence. "
Along with his co-stars, Friend he researched for his role studying first-hand accounts and other documents that could make him understand the workings of the minds of the murderers: "The theme of the film is very delicate, and that we should treat very carefully, "she says. "I had to find a way to understand the mentality of the Nazi Party, see why anyone would obey orders to engage in genocide, no questions asked. Among many things, I read a biography the commander of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, and the wonderful memories of a girl who lived in the mountains of Hitler. I also read something about the psychology of war and how the soldiers were faced with the killing. Most frightening of people who committed these crimes is that they were human beings, men were real, breathing and thinking. They were not upset. It may not have the same moral limits us, but no doubt they were human beings. I think it is important to observe, not sympathize with them, with some humanity so we can remember that we are only one step of an atrocity like that. "
Like John Boyne, author of the novel, the actor David Hayman, who plays Pavel, the likeable inmate kitchen hand, had visited the Auschwitz concentration camp: "Many years ago I was on tour in Poland with a theater company and went to Auschwitz," he says. "The visit gave me a big impact. They say the birds do not sing and flowers grow not Auschwitz. And it's not a legend is true. When you leave there feeling that something has changed within. Feel the need to do something, anything to let go of the horror you feel. I think every school in the world should take their students to Auschwitz and say, 'This is man's inhumanity to man. " This can man, and not let that ever happen again. " Unfortunately, still going. It is happening now. " THE LOCATIONS
All the film's creative team, including cinematographer Benoit Delhomme, production designer Martin Childs and costume designer Natalie Ward, was determined to bring authenticity, respect and attention to detail recreate the darkest periods of history.
must mention the emotions and the impact that caused the shooting of the film, especially in the Hungarian member of the team. "The team has always been aware that Hungary had supported Germany during the two World Wars, and understand that history was confined to the 40 "says producer David Heyman. "They have gone through very authoritarian regimes and I think identified with what happened at that time. I quickly realized the feelings that gave rise to this film. "
Cinematographer Benoit Delhomme had read the book once and was excited to give it life. "This is not a pretty picture film," says David Heyman, "and Benoit has succeeded brilliantly capture every moment of discomfort, but also the beauty horror. Sometimes the frame is a bit confusing, is a first plane a little fuzzy head of a character. The image is not always clear, but the plan speaks for itself. "
"When I started this movie," says production designer Martin Childs, "had already been chosen Budapest. I first traveled there to see what kind of sites had. It was a very productive visit. I knew we had much work ahead to make things turn out well but the city already has that look as Central that fit perfectly with the movie. 'In the script, it seemed that the scenarios were designed alone, the story has a fairly clear geography, with different places that I thought perfect, all the spaces fit very well, worked perfectly. "
For example, the opening scenes of the movie are part of a montage of Bruno and his friends running the streets and imitating Messerschmitts. They are attracted by the glamor of war and return home from school. He wanted his route passing over different areas of the city's most affluent neighborhoods of Berlin and those places in which their mothers would not want them to go. We did not want a montage of famous landmarks, but reflect the different social strata in the first sequence of the film. "
"First, I had to build the house of the concentration camp" Childs said. "I wanted to find something that worked, but eventually built from scratch, next to a forest that was what the story needed. We had a lot of research to create a concentration camp, because we found that there were many differences between them, but everyone had the same purpose. We were very careful when designing the fence where they would know Bruno and Shmuel, a gray background behind Shmuel blue and green woods behind Bruno. As the story is told from the point of view of Bruno, spent much time putting his height, kneeling to figure drawings. "
"I had to look real, had to be authentic para que los espectadores se creyesen que estaban dentro de ese mundo”, comenta la diseñadora de vestuario Natalie Ward. “No es algo que necesite un enfoque muy imaginativo, porque queríamos que el público reconociese a estas personas. Se han hecho muchas películas sobre esa época, pero aunque creemos saber cómo era, queríamos hacerlo de la forma más perfecta posible. Una vez que empezamos a centrarnos en los detalles nos dimos cuenta de que no sabíamos tanto como pensábamos. Por eso hice miles de preguntas e investigué muchísimo”.
En cuanto a los platós de las últimas escenas de la película, el diseñador Martin Childs sabía que necesitaría el mayor grado posible of authenticity. "For the scene of the prelude to the gas chamber and the gas chamber itself, I had to research a lot, and it was not pleasant," he says. "There is a famous photograph of the Auschwitz gas chamber that looked strangely like basement beneath the study that we were shooting some scenes. We could modify it and fortunately we had to build a gas chamber of the blue. "
"Now there are many books and thousands of verified evidence compiled by librarians and Jewish groups trying to contextualize the Holocaust. As a matter of history and time, there is much material that refers to this period, " says supervising art director Rod McLean. "The 1955 documentary by Alain Resnais' Night and Fog" caused a great impact. You're never prepared to see something. So although there is much research material available, images and descriptions continue to impact, take a few days to recover after logging in to this.
Budapest, the capital of Hungary, was chosen as a filming location because the geography of the city and surroundings fit very well with the visual and cinematic needs of the script and filming. Apart from a very tight budget and the availability of excellent professionals and studios. What they had not expected the directors of photography was very visceral reaction of many members of the cast and crew to know that this story was going to shoot in a country that had carried out these atrocities, when the chaos of World War II took over the country and its people.
Located on both banks of the Danube, Budapest joins the Buda hills and the boulevards of Pest. Although during the Second World War and later in the Revolution of 1956, destroyed about 30,000 buildings, there are still architectural structures. The city has served as a location for many international productions, playing London Paris, East and West Berlin and even Buenos Aires.
After an extensive search, the director Mark Herman, who was returning from a reconnaissance mission, he found the location of the house outside Berlin on a busy street Zugló district in Budapest. The interior of the house were filmed at Castle Sacelláry, which is renovated and located in Budafok, the district of Budapest XXII.
In the initial assembly, a complex of buildings that was like a city within a city served to shoot the Nazis rounded up Jewish residents. The students, in imitation of fighter pilots, flying in an elegant square is just behind the Hotel Kempinski and spend the other hand, in an area adjacent to the Opera.
After touring the area closest looking for everything from hunting shelters to train, the director Mark Herman and production designer Martin Childs decided to build the house outside the camp commander in the orphanage land FOT, known as the "City of Children." The forests of the "City of Children" is used to create the stretch that runs Bruno to go and return to the fence where he meets Shmuel.
The barracks where they filmed the scenes of the concentration camp were built for the John Huston film, "Escape to Victory." They have since been amended several times to meet the needs of several Hungarian and international productions.
Scenarios for children's rooms were built in the newly renovated Lloyd Studio. The last weeks of shooting took place in the Róna Mafilm Street Studio.
BOOK ABOUT LIFE IS ELSEWHERE by Daniela Vilaboa
With more than six editions in English, about thirty other languages \u200b\u200bto which it expects to be translated, and a contract with Miramax to be made into a film , the latest novel by John Boyne Irish stands as an interesting allegorical one of the most atrocities in the history of mankind.
"Nothing prose of horror, no overheated Sunset Blvd. I saw everything, but did not write anything about it. " My century. Gunter Grass
There are events that function as turning points in people's lives, as it is inserted into the vast terrain of memory with the same onslaught with a wedge is driven into the smooth marble of a rock and the surface cracks . This is how sometimes a very small contact between one and "outside" can always turn to the direction of a spirit that remained quiet. However, the size or importance of this break is, in large measure, in direct relation not only with the specific gravity of event bursts, but also to the greater or lesser degree of ignorance about the same he has lived up to that point. However, even when some of its restraint might have been foreseen or intuit, the texture of reality is always palpated about an irrefutable truth. "Virgin We all life events," said the Belgian Marguerite Yourcenar, although there -of course-some virginity that hurt more than others when they lose, they are like crossing a border fence, as intimidating structure augurs no great flashes of happiness beyond the horizon. Some of that innocence violated attempts to retrieve the fifth novel by the young Irish writer John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which has six editions in Spain and remained first in sales for 35 weeks in their country of origin. And it does so from the story of a nine year old boy, Bruno, who, between fearlessness and restlessness becomes a witness-and part-of irrevocable breakdown of peace everyday. The novel is the deployment time of that path, that passage which operates in Bruno from an untimely move that forced him and his family, to change the city. Migration begins, with the passage of days, to produce changes both within the familiar world routine and small, as in their symbolic universe, and the child must cope alone. The presence of a strange fence along the bottom of your new home becomes the trigger for a myriad of questions, whose final answer can be found only at a point of no return. Bruno perceives that there is another life beyond this boundary, a life that you are nervous, which is disturbing and calls, but no clear end to decode the signals from there you go. Largely for his young age, partly because living under the weight of rhetoric and repressive father figure, which deals with misrepresent the world around him, and also because some other even resists know. These feelings are waging a battle within, in which one of them eventually end up beating the rest, at the request of friendship that suddenly arise between Bruno and a boy who lives across the fence, and the faces both to speculate that a link will be crucial to resolving the conflict. This at first seems the plot of a simple story with fantastic elements, perhaps, or own children's literature, will soon record belies more allegorical than realistic, even when reported in the historical background of apodictic reality. The novel moves linguistically with a flat tone, away from any outline of mannerism, it sucks to reproduce some of that naive look that afflicts a nine-year-old face to face more disturbing and ominous in the world they inhabit, their tragic fate. But this note is not going to announce it, and neither does the editor from the back of the book, in a clear gesture of respect for the stylistic choices that the author happened to take at the time of writing, towards a better articulation between form and substance of the issue. Well, ultimately, what The Boy in the Striped Pajamas try not plunge readers into the blackness of the crevices of the cracked marble, but show us the instant before the blow of the wedge and the inability of size against scourge the world decides to look the other way.
on location in Hungary: The Orphanage EOT, Kerepesi Cemetery. Study Lloyd, Budaors, Mafilm, castle Sacellary, Budafok, Zuglo, and in Budapest by BBC Films, Heyday Films and Miramax Films
COMMENTS Translating the screen from the novel by John Boyne, which set in the years of World War II, describes the transfer of Bruno and his family to a mansion near a concentration camp, from which the father was named commander. Bruno is a boy of eight years of powerful imagination, which is bored at home all day .. This is how your attention is captured by what he believes is a neighboring farm, although very rare and that all workers wear a striped pajamas unconventional. Excited to be an explorer, and without the knowledge of their parents, get close to the fence of the camp, where she meets a boy his age, Shmuel, boarding there. Neither understands what is happening, but between them, and in secret, a friendship emerges.
is a worthy adaptation of the original work, a cruel kind of fable, the main difficulty was to preserve the child's point of view, which holds the role naive, but that images could be difficult to accept. In addition, the novel was somewhat overrated in the accumulation of repetitive mistakes. For all this the director and adapted screenplay author, Mark Herman, plays with the idea that the young protagonist is a little closer to the horror of the truth, which allowed betray the book, also expands the role of mother, so that even an adult begins to get rid of his blindness. The film is followed with interest, especially through the child, super Asa Butterfield, and somewhat stereotypical father, an evil Nazi or the simplicity with which it portrayed the sister ( www.decine21.com )
The film is the chilling and poignant film version of best-selling book by John Boyne. With a narrative tone fairly light, Boyne's book raises a naive fable focusing on the unlikely friendship that evolves between Bruno, the son of a Nazi commandant, and Shmuel, a Jewish boy, arrested in a death camp. Boyne adopting a child record the best and most restrictive sense of the adjective. Despite the harrowing story it conveys, there is a bias in the text of a fairy tale that helps to diffuse the horror.
Although the film is produced by Miramax, looks brand BBC Films. The latter certainly gives character. Like other filmmakers of the same company, the conduct of Mark Herman, a bit cold, clinging to classicism and stacks up well and the same goes for art direction, sets, built in Hungary, are excellent contribute to the credibility of the story. The cast excels Asa Butterfield in the role of Bruno, which makes it very credible that introverted child, dreamy and somewhat averse to the doctrine which holds his family. David Thewlis plays his father, a character in which alternate without apparent contradiction, tenderness, refinement and fanatical barbarism. Although its role is secondary, the real winner of the cast is Rupert Friend, stuck in the skin of an SS officer who arrives to freeze the blood of the viewer.
Overall, we are facing a very successful film, warmly praised by British critics, but has a drawback if you think the average viewer: the devastating sadness of its final stretch. Where The Pianist or Schindler's List leaves a loophole for hope and redemption of man, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas reading poses a sincere, serious and heinous definitely the Holocaust. As was true. ( www.guzmanurrero.es )
GENERAL
Berlin 1940's. Bruno, eight years, returns home after playing with his friends at school to find a flurry of activity: her father, a Nazi officer, has been promoted and his mother is preparing a party. Bruno does not understand what the new place since his father's fate is out of Berlin. The entire family will have to move to the country, forcing him to leave home and friends she loves. His fear of loneliness is confirmed when the family arrives at their new, isolated and left home.
Bruno has trouble getting used to her new life and increasingly bored. No children to play with and her mother forbidden to explore around the house. Her older sister, Gretel, do not bother to speak: she is too busy with her dolls or talking to one of the men of his father, Lieutenant Kotler. Bruno is intrigued by the existence of a strange sort of farm you see from the window of his room, where all its inhabitants seem to wear striped pajamas. W hen you try to know more about the 'farm' tell him to forget it and forbids him there. We know something that Bruno does not know is that the 'farm' is a death camp. Her mother ignores it. Cree who is living next to an internment camp or work. Her husband has sworn never to reveal their true purpose: to kill a plant designed to carry out the 'Final Solution', the systematic extermination of the Jewish people.
Bruno befriends Pavel, who works in the kitchen, wearing striped pajamas under her apron. While her mother is out of the house, Bruno fell off the swing in the garden and making a cut on his knee. And Pavel who heals the wound. Pavel tells Bruno that was dedicated to the practice of medicine and smiles when a child says that should not be very good if I needed practice. Fter several weeks hanging around the house, Bruno ends up defying his mother and sneaks out of the house from the backyard in search of adventure. Wander through the woods and runs into a fence. On the other hand, a little boy with a striped pajamas debris being unloaded from a truck. Bruno is so happy to have found someone their age to play with, it starts to go every day to Shmuel, his new friend, without telling him or his parents or his sister.
In the following weeks, Bruno begins to be increasingly disturbed by what he sees and what he hears at home and what he discovers in his secret life at the wire with Shmuel. As his tutor says that Jews are the embodiment of evil, its connection with Shmuel is becoming increasingly strong. Witnesses the brutal beating Pavel, the kitchen boy, suffering at the hands the unpredictable Lieutenant Kotler. Furthermore, her mother has begun to realize some things after a joke in bad taste of the young lieutenant to disclose the true source of foul smoke from the chimneys of the field. Bruno also feel somewhat confused by the changes that her sister is suffering, influenced by the lessons of his tutor and the attraction to Lt. Kotler, has lined the walls of his room with Nazi propaganda. The increasingly rarefied atmosphere of his home, along with the stories that make Shmuel tells Bruno wonder if something sinister is happening to the other side of the fence, and if your father is really a good man who had always believed. Bruno is surprised to see Shmuel cleaning glassware in your home and gives her a cake, but Lieutenant Kotler surprised them together and Shmuel accused of stealing food. Instead of defending his friend from the arrogant soldier, Lieutenant Bruno said he had never seen Kotler Shmuel. Later, tormented by remorse, Bruno visit the fence several times to apologize to his friend, but the boy in the striped pajamas does not appear. When Samuel returns at last, his face is marked by a terrible wound caused by the fist of Lieutenant Kotler, and Bruno is deeply sorry for him. However, Shmuel forgives him and resume their friendship. Meanwhile, the relationship between the mother and the father of Bruno has become so tight that her father decides to send his family home of an aunt who lives in Heidelberg. The move, which Bruno had wanted desperately since they arrived, is a blow for him as he realizes he will have to leave his new best friend.
In one of his last meetings, Bruno learns that Shmuel's father takes three days to appear. Bruno promises to help his friend to find his father. He seems like a good opportunity to compensate for having betrayed to the lieutenant. On the move to Heidelberg, Bruno escapes to see Shmuel charged with a shovel and ready to embark on one last adventure. But once you cross the fence, Bruno is immersed in an eerie race that will decide his fate, his friend and of the innocent is on the other side of the fence.
THE ORIGIN OF THE MOVIE
fable is intended to provide a unique perspective on the consequences of prejudice, hatred and violence inflicted on innocent people, particularly children, during wartime. Through the eyes of a German boy of eight years, safe from the terrible reality of war, we witness the forbidden friendship that evolves between Bruno, the son of a Nazi commandant, and Shmuel, a Jewish boy imprisoned in a field concentration. Although a fence separating them physically, the lives of children just inevitably intertwined.
"It goes without saying that a fictional story that takes place in a place and at the time of the Holocaust always raises blisters, and any author who decides to write on this subject must know very well what your intentions before you start. And it may be particularly important in the case of a book written for children, "said John Boyne, author of the book. "To me, an Irish writer of 34 years, I had the feeling that the only respectful way to approach this subject was through innocence, a tale told from the point of view of a naive child who can not comprehend the horrors environment in which they live. I think that innocence is what can best understand someone of my generation in relation to the horror of that time. " Boyne
continues: "What happens here, asks Bruno. Why are there so many people on the other side of the fence? They may be simple questions, but basically, are not these the questions we raised today? And maybe that's the work of writers or artists, continue to seek answers, make sure that people keep asking questions so that no one ever forget why they had made a first time. "
David Heyman, producer of Harry Potter, had long been interested in novel though was the director and screenwriter Mark Herman who bought the book rights. When he and Herman met and discovered they had very similar ideas about the project, decided to work together. Both acknowledged that a fictional story told in the context of the Holocaust could be very controversial, but both are passionate about the idea of \u200b\u200bbringing to the screen a compelling dramatic story, yet with an important message accessible and timeless. Both were in agreement with Boyne in any attempt to elucidate the dark side of the Nazi era for future generations was as legitimate as necessary: \u200b\u200bNo one should forget the history or repeat it.
"When I read the book, I immediately imagined the movie, "says Mark Herman. "But I thought I would be very complicated because it was a very sensitive material."
"One of the characters in Graham Greene says that hate is lack of imagination," says David Heyman. "I firmly believe in it, and I also believe that the magnitude of the Holocaust, all the barbarity, the number of dead, the shattered lives ... all that is impossible to measure, because the numbers are truly inconceivable. If you try to explain to a child what happened at a time not long ago, the figures are too high to understand. I think John Boyne has found an incredibly emotional and effectively address the issue by focusing its story on two children and a family. "
Heyman goes on to say: "I attract a lot of deeply human stories, and foremost this is a human story. While the Holocaust is a story that takes place in Germany in the 1940's, for me, this story is timeless. With all the conflicts which we live today, both in Rwanda, Somalia, Palestine, Israel, Darfur, Zimbabwe or Iraq, I think this story is as relevant now as at any other time in history. We are deeply touched both me and thousands of readers around the world. These children have the potential and the ability to overcome cultural differences and identity and thus demonstrate that humans can get along if they are encouraged to hate anyone, governments, institutions and the media can cultivate and grow the conflict and mistrust. They are very modern ideas with universal relevance, and I think this story makes them accessible to everyone. "
"The Prize laureate Elie Wiesel says that if you have not been there, do not write about it," says author John Boyne. "And in a way, I agree with him. But at the same time tell us that we should not forget. So I think that as the decades go by, it is the responsibility of artists to find new ways to tell this story, to remember the world all the people who died. If you approach the issue without exploiting it, trying not to trivialize but to tell the story another way to reach other audiences, you've achieved your goal. Children who have read my book I tell them: 'If you have moved, if I was interested in the history of these two guys, here's a list of books you should read. " And these books are of figures such as Wiesel, Primo Levi and Anne Frank, writers who lived through the Holocaust in their own flesh and they have the moral authority to talk about it. I hope that artists today can get kids interested enough to want to read more. "
All members of the production team behind (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) were clear that they were shooting a fictional story and not a documentary. However, as the script is historical, all were very meticulous in respecting the context in which it operates.
"We are extremely concerned about the authenticity," said Mark Herman. "When we were doing the adaptation, I found that the concentration camp commanders vowed to secrecy under threat of death so that their activities were top secret. They were forbidden to tell anyone, including their own families, in what his 'work'. This was helpful when writing the script, especially to explain why the captain had not told his wife anything about the extermination program: She believes that this is a work camp and discover the truth by accident. Today, the public has the advantage of knowing what really happened, so some things will be obvious. The spectators do not understand that women do not know it: he was living next to a concentration camp, so I had to know. But some people do not know anything. In Auschwitz, for example, the wife of commander lived practically on top of the field for two years without having any idea that this was an extermination camp. The amazing thing about this story is that these two boys, one on each side of the fence, do not know what is going on. "
"Mark has been placed on the history of the family by giving the adult point of view of the mother, who is gradually discovering what happens on the field. That part of the story is much less developed in the book, "says co-producer Rosie Alison of Heyday Films, which has coordinated the historical documentation of the film. "He also added a Nazi propaganda film that we discover during our work of documentation. This is a disgusting 14-minute short film aimed at showing what life was like in the concentration camps, activities recreation, food friendly, smiling faces. Mark decided to shoot a film version that Bruno could get an idea of \u200b\u200bwhat it was. Thus thought I knew what was happening in the field since they had seen the short film. This makes for a moment to regain his faith in his father. "
Alison continues: "It is a story based on historical facts, and we have treated with the utmost respect," he says. "This is a story told in a rather indirect. Almost until the end, all you see is from the other side of the fence, and what happens in the camp does not become evident until the final scenes. The most controversial aspect of the film, and perhaps where we have allowed some artistic license, is the presence of Shmuel in the concentration camp. This is certainly part of the movie in which fiction and reality are far apart, because the terrible reality is that most children who came to the camps were killed immediately. However, in 1944, Auschwitz in particular children and is survived some isolated cases of children who remained alive, both for medical experiments with them to specific jobs (like in the documented case of two children to which remained alive in Treblinka to feed the ducks at the pond). There well-known photographs of children surviving to reach the liberation of the camps, but of course I usually skip the transport used in arriving at the gas chambers. So the story of Shmuel can be somewhat unlikely. "
"History tends to repeat itself and I think it is very important to talk about all these issues, whatever and whoever, as long as the emotional content is real and true," says producer David Heyman. "This is the story of a normal family of ordinary people who, through ignorance, innocence and unwavering obedience to authority, regardless of the cruelty of that authority, embodied to perfection the "banality of evil" of Hannah Arendt. I hope that young people and the rest of the audience comes to thrill the movie so they can better understand the price paid by the tragedy and consequences for those who lived this tragedy, whether the perpetrators and victims.
The film has been made with great honesty and passion people feel a tremendous respect and admiration for those who survived, as well as those who did not. I think it is very important to keep this story alive in order not to repeat, any step we take that can change the world view of a person worth
CAST AND CHARACTERS
says director Mark Herman: "We saw so many young players before deciding who would play Bruno, the son of the camp commandant." Yañade: "The first film I received was that of Asa Butterfield and was the third person I saw. I looked fantastic, but we are looking for because we wanted to ensure that we do not we let anyone. At the end we decided it would be him because he needed a child to eat the camera. Asa does. Has the perfect blend of innocence and curiosity that the role requires, in addition to penetrating eyes and observers. "
"Mark helped me a lot telling me what I had to do," says 10-year actor Asa Butterfield. "The only thing I like about making movies is having to repeat scenes over and over again, but I guess it is the filming!" Before working on this film, Asa knew something of the historical context of the film. "I knew some things," he says. "But I knew it was called the Holocaust. I almost started to mourn when I read the script. " On the casting
Shmuel, the Jewish boy on the other side of the fence, Herman says: "I saw Jack Scanlon as the selection process was well advanced and had spent hundreds of children. Jack can move without being too sentimental, has a certain natural dignity. But it was necessary to verify that our Bruno chemical produced before electing to play the role of Shmuel. When we reduce the pool of applicants to only three, we tried different pairs with Asa. Jack and Asa did very well together. "
Jack Scanlon, eight years on the big screen debut in the role of Shmuel. His account of the time it completed with a conclusion that shows you have understood perfectly the injustice experienced by the victims: "The Germans lost to the British in the First World War. So Hitler wanted revenge by taking all the Jews and the people who were against the Germans putting them in 'ghettos'. Then they were taken to concentration camps. And Bruno believes that because the Jews are the best work. But in reality, Hitler's internal punishment. Although it should be so, for what evil has he done? "
To Gretel, the role of Bruno's sister, Herman chose the young actress Amber Beattie. "He was fantastic in the auditions," recalls Herman. "And like Asa, Amber became the model that served as a comparison for the other candidates. But neither could overcome it, remained head of the pack throughout the process. Amber is very sincere, and like Gretel, despite Bruno despises and is attracted by the German Youth, as the story develops, manages to gain our sympathy. " Amber
The teenager cried when reading the book and saw the movie first. Its message is simple but sound: "I think the Iección of the film is not to judge others, treating everyone as equals. Because in reality we are all equal. " Producer David Heyman
was impressed by Mark Herman rapport with the cast, especially his ability to communicate with younger members. "It's very easy to consent or to treat them with condescension," says Heyman, "but Mark did not. He treated children as people mature in their own decisions and ideas were treated with the respect they deserve and I think the children responded according to the deal. They realized they were doing something serious and dramatic, something that required effort and attention, it was worth and had a great value. As a result, they tried to work with the same respect with which they treated them Mark. Director Mark Herman is a very compassionate - she feels a real compassion for the characters I write and what you direct actors. "
U.S. actress Vera Farmiga plays Elsa, Bruno's mother and wife of the commander. Director Mark Herman wanted to take advantage of the chameleon qualities that had attracted interest from directors such as Martin Scorsese and Anthony Minghella: "What attracted me was how Vera put on the skin of the characters he plays. It's totally different, almost unrecognizable in all his films. Appeared every morning on the set as a lady of the 40's and was virtually impossible to recognize Vera Farmiga. Europe has a very physical and is a fantastic actress. Has succeeded in capturing the moral ambiguity and brings a humanity and compassion very particular to the role of the wife of the commander who is slowly discovering the gas chambers. I think Vera and David have done a much better job of they had never expected. " Vera Farmiga
conducted a thorough investigation for his role, and his portrayal of Elsa is an amalgam of all journals and newspapers that read: "It's kind of mixture of all women in the Third Reich from Hitler to Emmy Paula Goering , Magda Goebbels, Eva Braun and Leni Riefenstahl, all of them. I also studied a lot of propaganda about motherhood, the cult of motherhood and what it meant, what was required to mothers and what their position at that time. "
"In a way, Elsa is the guardian of the fence, its mission is to hide its existence and what is behind it, and when Bruno discovers the fence, its mission is to keep them away, "says Farmiga. "There is dialogue in the novel, in my opinion, is the key to the character of Elsa, shortly after arriving at the house next to the concentration camp, Bruno said:" I think this has not been a good idea. " And his mother says, 'We can not afford the luxury of thinking'. "
Farmiga continues: "Elsa does not think. You do not have their own opinions, does not analyze anything. Decide to ignore everything and just worry about the safety of his family and his social position, everything else is on the sidelines. It is a kind of accomplice and assistant in regard to the ideals of her husband, their desires, their values \u200b\u200band ambitions. But when it starts to open their eyes and realize what is happening, when it begins to investigate, he begins to lose respect for her husband and mistrust him. At the end of rebels. Decides to condemn what is happening. Even attempts to show her husband the horror that is responsible. But it's too late: I think his initial behavior by refusing to see what was happening in front of their noses, on the other side of the fence, it costs a life. In a way it till the fate of their children, because when you start to investigate it's too late. Sensed something, know they are trying very badly to people who are hospitalized. But does not want to, not because it wants to see implicate her and her husband. "
Farmiga says that the film will attract and interest the public today in many ways: "The character of Elsa, his indifference, apathy and ignorance initials, is crucial to know how they could kill many people in the eyes of all the world without anyone knowing. Because this is happening all over the world. This story could have been based in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo or Darfur. That racial hatred still exists. "
David Thewlis plays Bruno's father, the commander of a concentration camp." I've always been a big fan of David ", says Herman." His role is one of the most difficult because in the first part plays a very loving father and human. Although viewers know exactly what this father. In these circumstances play a man who leads a normal family life is very complicated. David overboard the role of loving man. You do not understand that someone like that can have a dark side. "
"I think the difference in this script is that it is seen from a German perspective, through the eyes of a German child. At first it seems that my role, that of a loving father (even though the audience knows from the beginning what their labor), may inspire some compassion, "says David Thewlis. "The challenge is not to interpret a typical Nazi evil has two faces. In my research I discovered that my character was based on real events. In the film does not mention what camp is, but obviously that is not Auschwitz, because then it would be interpreted to Rudolf Hoess, who had five children who grew up in Auschwitz, where they could see the crematorium. And also I play Joseph Goebbels, which took six children into the bunker at the end of the war. He and his wife the poisoned and then committed suicide. It is unthinkable that a story like this was real. It is a work of fiction, but based on quite plausible situations. We have only widened the gap between home and country, they were really only a few meters. " Thewlis
continues: "For years investigating not so much for a movie. But I felt compelled to do so. Usually I'm inspired by someone who is part of my life in some way or someone I have known and compare it with the character trying to implement its features. But I've never met anyone who resembles the character I play in this movie. It is quite difficult to think of a loving father says goodbye to his children after breakfast, and goes (literally) next door to spend the day surrounded by terrible atrocities. How can you get used to that? "As Vera
Farmiga, Thewlis read many private documents written by architects and perpetrators of the Final Solution to the time to prepare for his role as commander of the camp: "I got a letter that Rudolf Hoess had written to his children just before his execution. The letter was on the kitchen table, and some neighbors had come to see me. He had not counted on what was working. Saw the letter and began to read, and when finished it looked at me and said, 'What more beautiful and charming letter written this man to your children! Who was he? Why going to die? Was he sick? ". I replied: 'Yes, I was VERY sick! '. There is no doubt that the letter is written by a man who feels a great love for their children, everything is very well expressed and very touching, almost poetic. Try to understand a human being, a sensitive human being who is able to do that. I have not found nothing to justify or forgive. But my job was to find any trace of humanity in the character and not what they are monsters. But they were human beings. And today, there are still people like them. "
"For me, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is interesting in many ways," says Thewlis. "It's my role, which is fairly straightforward, then there is my wife, accepts the idea of \u200b\u200ba concentration camp but gradually begins to realize that I am involved in the genocide, and appreciated the effect it has on our marriage. It is also my daughter, Gretel, who is attracted by the rhetoric, politics, the country. His flirtation with the young soldier is almost an ideological seduction. His father fully supports the Reich, but his mother hates everything that fascism means and he says openly. So within the same family we have five or six different views evolve over the film. It is also Bruno, whose point of view changes several times during the course of history until the end. In the film we witnessing the gradual disintegration of the family, and that is the punishment for the sins of the father. "
For the role of Lieutenant Kotler, Mark Herman elected the young British actor Rupert Friend. "It's an actor who could do anything," says Herman. "You can play a very nice person and another absolutely horrible. In this paper, is a horrible person. He has done a fantastic job. It's creepy and dangerously seductive. We fully understand that a girl's age Gretel may be attracted by him and what it represents. At the same time, Rupert reveals the high vulnerability of Lieutenant Kotler in the 'interrogation' of his father that develops during dinner. "
Lieutenant Kotler is the catalyst for romance Gretel with Nazi ideology (described memorably by Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper as 'a gigantic aberration Nordic') and the destruction of the marriage of the concentration camp commandant. Friend describes his character as a member of the "inner circle" of the family, "Kotler is the mother who tells what they are doing is burning the bodies of Jews," he says. "Therefore, Father Kotler blames the breakup of his family. Of course, the father is overseeing the atrocities, but that Kotler blames his wife finds out what happens. It's the end of Kotler's career, because his father sent him to the front line, which is practically a death sentence. "
Along with his co-stars, Friend he researched for his role studying first-hand accounts and other documents that could make him understand the workings of the minds of the murderers: "The theme of the film is very delicate, and that we should treat very carefully, "she says. "I had to find a way to understand the mentality of the Nazi Party, see why anyone would obey orders to engage in genocide, no questions asked. Among many things, I read a biography the commander of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, and the wonderful memories of a girl who lived in the mountains of Hitler. I also read something about the psychology of war and how the soldiers were faced with the killing. Most frightening of people who committed these crimes is that they were human beings, men were real, breathing and thinking. They were not upset. It may not have the same moral limits us, but no doubt they were human beings. I think it is important to observe, not sympathize with them, with some humanity so we can remember that we are only one step of an atrocity like that. "
Like John Boyne, author of the novel, the actor David Hayman, who plays Pavel, the likeable inmate kitchen hand, had visited the Auschwitz concentration camp: "Many years ago I was on tour in Poland with a theater company and went to Auschwitz," he says. "The visit gave me a big impact. They say the birds do not sing and flowers grow not Auschwitz. And it's not a legend is true. When you leave there feeling that something has changed within. Feel the need to do something, anything to let go of the horror you feel. I think every school in the world should take their students to Auschwitz and say, 'This is man's inhumanity to man. " This can man, and not let that ever happen again. " Unfortunately, still going. It is happening now. " THE LOCATIONS
All the film's creative team, including cinematographer Benoit Delhomme, production designer Martin Childs and costume designer Natalie Ward, was determined to bring authenticity, respect and attention to detail recreate the darkest periods of history.
must mention the emotions and the impact that caused the shooting of the film, especially in the Hungarian member of the team. "The team has always been aware that Hungary had supported Germany during the two World Wars, and understand that history was confined to the 40 "says producer David Heyman. "They have gone through very authoritarian regimes and I think identified with what happened at that time. I quickly realized the feelings that gave rise to this film. "
Cinematographer Benoit Delhomme had read the book once and was excited to give it life. "This is not a pretty picture film," says David Heyman, "and Benoit has succeeded brilliantly capture every moment of discomfort, but also the beauty horror. Sometimes the frame is a bit confusing, is a first plane a little fuzzy head of a character. The image is not always clear, but the plan speaks for itself. "
"When I started this movie," says production designer Martin Childs, "had already been chosen Budapest. I first traveled there to see what kind of sites had. It was a very productive visit. I knew we had much work ahead to make things turn out well but the city already has that look as Central that fit perfectly with the movie. 'In the script, it seemed that the scenarios were designed alone, the story has a fairly clear geography, with different places that I thought perfect, all the spaces fit very well, worked perfectly. "
For example, the opening scenes of the movie are part of a montage of Bruno and his friends running the streets and imitating Messerschmitts. They are attracted by the glamor of war and return home from school. He wanted his route passing over different areas of the city's most affluent neighborhoods of Berlin and those places in which their mothers would not want them to go. We did not want a montage of famous landmarks, but reflect the different social strata in the first sequence of the film. "
"First, I had to build the house of the concentration camp" Childs said. "I wanted to find something that worked, but eventually built from scratch, next to a forest that was what the story needed. We had a lot of research to create a concentration camp, because we found that there were many differences between them, but everyone had the same purpose. We were very careful when designing the fence where they would know Bruno and Shmuel, a gray background behind Shmuel blue and green woods behind Bruno. As the story is told from the point of view of Bruno, spent much time putting his height, kneeling to figure drawings. "
"I had to look real, had to be authentic para que los espectadores se creyesen que estaban dentro de ese mundo”, comenta la diseñadora de vestuario Natalie Ward. “No es algo que necesite un enfoque muy imaginativo, porque queríamos que el público reconociese a estas personas. Se han hecho muchas películas sobre esa época, pero aunque creemos saber cómo era, queríamos hacerlo de la forma más perfecta posible. Una vez que empezamos a centrarnos en los detalles nos dimos cuenta de que no sabíamos tanto como pensábamos. Por eso hice miles de preguntas e investigué muchísimo”.
En cuanto a los platós de las últimas escenas de la película, el diseñador Martin Childs sabía que necesitaría el mayor grado posible of authenticity. "For the scene of the prelude to the gas chamber and the gas chamber itself, I had to research a lot, and it was not pleasant," he says. "There is a famous photograph of the Auschwitz gas chamber that looked strangely like basement beneath the study that we were shooting some scenes. We could modify it and fortunately we had to build a gas chamber of the blue. "
"Now there are many books and thousands of verified evidence compiled by librarians and Jewish groups trying to contextualize the Holocaust. As a matter of history and time, there is much material that refers to this period, " says supervising art director Rod McLean. "The 1955 documentary by Alain Resnais' Night and Fog" caused a great impact. You're never prepared to see something. So although there is much research material available, images and descriptions continue to impact, take a few days to recover after logging in to this.
Budapest, the capital of Hungary, was chosen as a filming location because the geography of the city and surroundings fit very well with the visual and cinematic needs of the script and filming. Apart from a very tight budget and the availability of excellent professionals and studios. What they had not expected the directors of photography was very visceral reaction of many members of the cast and crew to know that this story was going to shoot in a country that had carried out these atrocities, when the chaos of World War II took over the country and its people.
Located on both banks of the Danube, Budapest joins the Buda hills and the boulevards of Pest. Although during the Second World War and later in the Revolution of 1956, destroyed about 30,000 buildings, there are still architectural structures. The city has served as a location for many international productions, playing London Paris, East and West Berlin and even Buenos Aires.
After an extensive search, the director Mark Herman, who was returning from a reconnaissance mission, he found the location of the house outside Berlin on a busy street Zugló district in Budapest. The interior of the house were filmed at Castle Sacelláry, which is renovated and located in Budafok, the district of Budapest XXII.
In the initial assembly, a complex of buildings that was like a city within a city served to shoot the Nazis rounded up Jewish residents. The students, in imitation of fighter pilots, flying in an elegant square is just behind the Hotel Kempinski and spend the other hand, in an area adjacent to the Opera.
After touring the area closest looking for everything from hunting shelters to train, the director Mark Herman and production designer Martin Childs decided to build the house outside the camp commander in the orphanage land FOT, known as the "City of Children." The forests of the "City of Children" is used to create the stretch that runs Bruno to go and return to the fence where he meets Shmuel.
The barracks where they filmed the scenes of the concentration camp were built for the John Huston film, "Escape to Victory." They have since been amended several times to meet the needs of several Hungarian and international productions.
Scenarios for children's rooms were built in the newly renovated Lloyd Studio. The last weeks of shooting took place in the Róna Mafilm Street Studio.
BOOK ABOUT LIFE IS ELSEWHERE by Daniela Vilaboa
With more than six editions in English, about thirty other languages \u200b\u200bto which it expects to be translated, and a contract with Miramax to be made into a film , the latest novel by John Boyne Irish stands as an interesting allegorical one of the most atrocities in the history of mankind.
"Nothing prose of horror, no overheated Sunset Blvd. I saw everything, but did not write anything about it. " My century. Gunter Grass
There are events that function as turning points in people's lives, as it is inserted into the vast terrain of memory with the same onslaught with a wedge is driven into the smooth marble of a rock and the surface cracks . This is how sometimes a very small contact between one and "outside" can always turn to the direction of a spirit that remained quiet. However, the size or importance of this break is, in large measure, in direct relation not only with the specific gravity of event bursts, but also to the greater or lesser degree of ignorance about the same he has lived up to that point. However, even when some of its restraint might have been foreseen or intuit, the texture of reality is always palpated about an irrefutable truth. "Virgin We all life events," said the Belgian Marguerite Yourcenar, although there -of course-some virginity that hurt more than others when they lose, they are like crossing a border fence, as intimidating structure augurs no great flashes of happiness beyond the horizon. Some of that innocence violated attempts to retrieve the fifth novel by the young Irish writer John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which has six editions in Spain and remained first in sales for 35 weeks in their country of origin. And it does so from the story of a nine year old boy, Bruno, who, between fearlessness and restlessness becomes a witness-and part-of irrevocable breakdown of peace everyday. The novel is the deployment time of that path, that passage which operates in Bruno from an untimely move that forced him and his family, to change the city. Migration begins, with the passage of days, to produce changes both within the familiar world routine and small, as in their symbolic universe, and the child must cope alone. The presence of a strange fence along the bottom of your new home becomes the trigger for a myriad of questions, whose final answer can be found only at a point of no return. Bruno perceives that there is another life beyond this boundary, a life that you are nervous, which is disturbing and calls, but no clear end to decode the signals from there you go. Largely for his young age, partly because living under the weight of rhetoric and repressive father figure, which deals with misrepresent the world around him, and also because some other even resists know. These feelings are waging a battle within, in which one of them eventually end up beating the rest, at the request of friendship that suddenly arise between Bruno and a boy who lives across the fence, and the faces both to speculate that a link will be crucial to resolving the conflict. This at first seems the plot of a simple story with fantastic elements, perhaps, or own children's literature, will soon record belies more allegorical than realistic, even when reported in the historical background of apodictic reality. The novel moves linguistically with a flat tone, away from any outline of mannerism, it sucks to reproduce some of that naive look that afflicts a nine-year-old face to face more disturbing and ominous in the world they inhabit, their tragic fate. But this note is not going to announce it, and neither does the editor from the back of the book, in a clear gesture of respect for the stylistic choices that the author happened to take at the time of writing, towards a better articulation between form and substance of the issue. Well, ultimately, what The Boy in the Striped Pajamas try not plunge readers into the blackness of the crevices of the cracked marble, but show us the instant before the blow of the wedge and the inability of size against scourge the world decides to look the other way.
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