Fkin Nazis, nothin changes

I watched the over hyped Boy in Striped Pyjamas the other night and I'll be blunt, I thought it was nonsense.

It's from the director of feel-good classics like Little Voice and Brassed Off. Turns out that brass bands and show tunes are more his thing.

I'm no fan of flippant treatment of the holocaust which meant this tosh tried my patience. It annoys the hell out of me when people try to find 'beauty' in war - actually war is ugly and it's no source of hope.

This film is the story of the nine year old son of a Nazi Commandant who runs a concentration camp. The son makes friends with 'the boy in striped pyjamas' who is on the other side of a rather flimsy and unguarded wire fence that would look more at home keeping bobby calves penned in.

Cut to the chase, we are all supposed to feel warm and fuzzy as the boys play together and eventually the Nazi boy simply burrows under the fence so they can kick about like normal kids and have a gay old time. SPOILER ALERT. Then tragedy ensues as, sure enough, they both end up in the gas chamber and are killed before the Commandant realises his son is in there. You know, forget the other 100 people in there - it's really shocking the Nazi kid got dragged into all this...

Why should killing the Nazi kid accidentally be any more shocking than butchering everyone else deliberately?

Why do we need to humanise the Nazis? Why do we need to look for humanity or some sort of beauty in the fucking holocaust? Six million people of different races and creeds suffered horrific deaths - end of story - and frankly I don't need some sentimental schmaltz to help me reflect on how there are no real winners from conflict or that we could all learn from the supposedly innocent children.