Are all Holocaust Movies the Same?

The Holocaust was a pivotal time in the history of the world leaving no corner of the globe unaffected. Some nations’ Jewish population was subjected to torture and genocide at the hands of Adolf Hitler and the German Nazi Party. Others fought hard to put an end to Hitler’s regime in World War II. Because the Holocaust had such a widespread effect, many films have been made documenting or addressing this time in history. Two of these films are the American The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas released in 2008 and the Italian Life is Beautiful (La Vita é Bella) released in 1998. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a film depicting the Holocaust experiences of the Nazi Germans, while Life is Beautiful depicts an Italian Jew’s experiences. Both movies do have something incredibly important in common. That is the lost innocence of a child. In Life is Beautiful Guido must protect Joshua from being killed in a Nazi concentration camp and shows how the Holocaust affects Giosue’s life. In The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas we are introduced to Bruno, whose father is a Nazi officer. The movie depicts how Bruno discovers and copes with what is really going on in the Holocaust. In my argument, I contest that both Life is Beautiful and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas share a global style of Holocaust movies; the nations’ drastically different experiences during the Holocaust shine through their film productions.

Both films have many similarities; however, they have vastly more differences. Both films begin with an idealized version of the nation that the film is set in. Life is Beautiful begins on a lush Italian countryside and moves to the city where everything seems to go as Guido, the protagonist, expects. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas also begins in an idealized Berlin, Germany under Nazi control. Both movies contain high-key lighting and cities bustling with people. As the plot thickens in both movies, the lighting scheme changes from high-key to low-key. In Life is Beautiful, the bright Italian city gives way to a dim concentration camp. The camp barracks especially are dimly lit with just a bright doorway providing light. The idealized Berlin of the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas becomes a home in the countryside decorated almost entirely in shades of gray and dimly lit only by light through small windows. This is contrasted with the brightly colored woods where Bruno plays and his imagination runs wild, free from the censorship of his parents.

The roles that the fathers play in the films share some similarities as well. Guido of Life is Beautiful is a loving father “who dares to find humor and tenderness in the midst of the Holocaust” and must lie to his son, Giosue, about what is really going on in the concentration camp (Maslin). He makes up an elaborate story about the Holocaust being a game in which you earn points by not complaining, and first prize is a tank. Bruno’s father in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas must also lie to his son about the realities of his work as a Nazi officer. He encourages Bruno to continue believing that the Jews in the concentration camp are farmers on a farm. Although their motives are different, they both try to protect their sons’ innocence by hiding the truth from them.

The two fathers are drastically different in their character, however. Bruno’s father can be a cold man more concerned with is work than his family. He tends to be a “Because I said so” kind of father who keeps himself separate from his son as the authority in the family. Guido is very different in that he encourages Giosue’s imagination and creates all kinds of elaborate stories to share with his son. He is warm and personable rather than cold and standoffish. “In some ways Guido has more obviously in common with the Little Tramp, Don Quixote, or even Christ” (Haskins 377). Guido is his son’s hero and really takes the time to get to know his son in ways that Bruno’s father doesn’t. In the end, Guido sacrifices his life for Giosue, whereas Bruno dies partially due to the lack of vigilance of his father.

Another character similarity is in the two children in the movies. Both Giosue and Bruno are fueled by larger than life imaginations. Bruno is able to believe that the concentration camp is no more than a farm and Giosue is able to be convinced that the Holocaust is no more than an elaborate game. They both are also looking for companionship. Giosue’s father, Guido, is his best friend and companion throughout the movie. Bruno befriends a Jewish boy named Shmuel who he follows out of loyalty “into a gas chamber where naked men and children huddle, and [their] hands clasp before the film cuts to black” (Dargis). They both must grow and lose their naivety because of the Holocaust. Both films use young and impressionable children to emphasize the impact of an event such as the Holocaust. It exposes the children to hardship and death that no child should be exposed to at such a young age. This approach allows the viewer to see how truly horrible this was.

The experience of each nation during the Holocaust had a big impact on the creation of these films. The American film, The Boy in the striped Pyjamas, depicts the Holocaust as “trivialized, glossed over, kitsched up, and commercially exploited” (Dargis). It really doesn’t address the true issues of the Holocaust. This is most likely because the people of the United States were safe in their homes in North America while European Jews were shipped off to these camps. The movie does not even address any of the hardships facing the Jewish community. Instead, the movie focuses of the hardships of a Nazi family. Those with any ties to the Holocaust whatsoever understand that the plight of the Jews dwarfs any hardship endured by the Nazis. To turn a blind eye to this and make a film sympathetic to the Nazis is exploiting the situation for a seemingly heart-wrenching plot about an innocent small boy who becomes a casualty of war. Although the viewer feels bad for Bruno, what about Schmuel? He was taken away from his family and lost everything. He had been living in the camp while Bruno had been living lavishly. He is the true victim.

Life is Beautiful, on the other hand, allows you to fully sympathize with the Jewish experience of the Holocaust. The viewer is introduced to Guido, a man who through the first half of the movie works hard to win over his woman, open his own bookshop, and start a family only to have it torn apart by the Nazis. When in the Nazi camp, Guido’s spirit remains unbroken. He spends his entire time there protecting his son from danger and even giving his son rations of his own food. His time there ends as most people’s did, in death, but through his death, Guido saves his son and wins over the viewer. It is the fact that Italian Jews really went through this hardship that makes this movie much more believable and a much more relevant movie than The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. The movie is able to draw on pre and post war Italian history to create the perfect setting to tell this story of self sacrifice and love for one’s family no matter the circumstances. Although Guido lost all the material possessions he had worked so hard for, he never lost his spirit, and never lost his family.

Both Life is Beautiful and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas attempt to tell a similar story from opposite sides. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas tells of the hardship of Nazi families struggling with the atrocities being committed by their fatherland. Life is Beautiful tells of the hardship faced by Italian Jews during the Holocaust. In the end, the Italian film is able be much more affective because the Italian people really did experience this, and it is a subject that is close to many Italians’ hearts. Many Italians have relatives who died in or lived through the Holocaust, and it is important to them that the injustice done to them and their bravery in the face of this injustice live on in history. The American film is much less affective because in history, the Nazi’s hardships are of incredibly lesser magnitude than the Jews. The American people did not have to experience the Holocaust the way Europeans did. This prevents total understanding and a complete ability to tell the story the way the Italians can. By analyzing these two movies, it is clear that in order for a nation to understand the Holocaust, the nation had to have experienced it.