The Boy in the Striped Pajamas/Pyjamas

[potioncat]

>Carol:
> Has anyone in the UK seen the new David Thewlis film, "The Boy in 
the
> Striped Pyjamas" ("Pajamas" in the U.S.)? The U.K. release date was
> September 12, but the U.S. release date isn't till November 14, 
right
> around the time when we would have seen HBP. However, David Thewlis 
in
> this film is no Lupin: He's the commandant at Auschwitz whose
> eight-year-old son befriends a Jewish boy on the "farm" where all 
the
> workers (some of them children) wear "striped pajamas." 

snip


Potioncat:
Oh dear. oh dear. oh dear. oh dear. 

Michael is reading that book now and said he thought the dad was a 
Nazi. I'd better start reading it too. This isn't going to be pretty. 
He gets very emotional about this subject. (I think one 14-year-old 
and one 55-year-old are going to find it disturbing.)

On to the movie.

OK, now all I can picture is Ralph,(but we call him Rafe) Fiennes as 
the commandant in Schindler's List. I'm trying to put Lupin's face in 
a Nazi uniform, but it won't fit.


Carol: 
> Fans of Remus Lupin may find it disturbing to see David Thewlis as a
> Nazi officer, believed by his son to be a "good man," "not the kind 
of
> soldier who takes away people's clothes." (Obviously, he's much
> worse.) Still, though, it looks like a good film, and children at 
some
> point need to learn about the Holocaust, but I wonder how a
> ten-year-old, even a mature one, would react to this particular 
story.

Potioncat:
Hmm. I'll have to think about this. I wonder if I should tell my son 
that Thewlis plays the dad in a movie version---before he reads the 
book or after. He's going to be very interested in that.

> Carol:
> BTW, and this is a very minor point, the German characters speak 
with
> their natural British accents, possibly indicating their social 
class
> to those familiar with the accents.


Potioncat:
Are all the characters German, and are all the actors British? Did 
the movie makers decide not to "do" German accents at all? I've seen 
movies done that way before. It works if it's consistent. 

Carol:
snip
 (Potioncat, was it you who
> had trouble accepting thewlis as Lupin because you'd first seen him 
as
> a bad guy? Maybe you shouldn't see this film!)
> 
> Carol, who's definitely planning to see Ralph Fiennes in "The 
Duchess"
> and tentatively planning to see David Thewlis in the "Striped 
Pajamas"
> film
>

Potioncat:
No, it wasn't me. The fist time I saw Thewlis he was a cricket, or a 
catepillar. I can't remember which. (James and the Giant Peach.) I'll 
go see this one---probably with a teen. I'd like to see the Duchess 
too, although I haven't had time to read about it.

By the way, speaking of pyjamas---what was with 'Bananas in Pyjamas'? 
Was that British or Australian?

Potioncat, who notices she's dropping words in most of her posts 
lately and asks kindly will readers pick them up they find any.