THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS: the horror and the innocence

I'm struggling to find words adequate to describe my reaction to THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS. It's a beautiful film about an almost unimaginable horror. I say almost because we should be able to imagine it. There are countless books, eyewitness accounts and hours of newsreel footage to tell us and show us what it was like, yet it was so horrendous that the mind struggles to comprend what our eyes are seeing.
If you thought there was nothing new left to say about the Nazis mass murder of the Jews in camps like Dachau and Treblinka and Auschwitz you have to see this film. It's the most heart wrenching and appalling depiction of the loss of childhood innocence that I have ever seen.
Set in Germany during World War II the story reveals the obscenity of the concentration camps from the viewpoint of an uncomprehending eight year old boy. Bruno (a haunting performance by Asa Butterfield) idolises his brave soldier father (a magnificent portrayal of the banality of evil by David Thewlis). When papa is promoted the family moves to a big, isolated house in the country and Bruno becomes fascinated by the "farm" he can see from his bedroom window and the strange people in striped pyjamas who are working on it. Disobeying his parents' strict instructions not to leave the house Bruno goes exploring and discovers the "farm" is actually some kind of camp surrounded by an electrified barbed wire fence and the stripey clothing is being worn by Jewish prisoners.
We've worked out long before the film confirms it that Bruno's brave father has been promoted to commandant of this concentration camp but this doesn't lessen the impact of the story which unfolds. Quite the contrary, because our realisation early on of what's really going on makes Bruno's innocence and naiveity all the more distressing. How can a child be expected to process the reality of what he's seeing? It has no connection with any of his points of reference. This inability allows him to strike up a friendship with Schmuel, an eight year old Jewish boy he encounters on the other side of the fence, and invite him to join him for a holiday in Berlin once "everyone is getting on with each other again." You won't know whether to laugh or cry at this uncomprehending human kindness in the face of such total hopelessness.
With its extremely uncomfortable juxtapositioning of childhood innocence and unspeakable adult cruelty, THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS puts a human face on the cold facts and figures of the Holocaust. A numbing, emotionally draining experience this film should be required viewing for everyone.