Striped Pyjamas

I bought the DVD of "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" through Amazon this week and it just arrived the other day. Since the YFG took a sickie today (she has the head cold which I am also suffering from), we watched it this afternoon when I got home from working. I had read the book and she had had it read to her at school, so we both knew the story - but the film is, in our opinion, brilliant. The young Bruno is excellently acted, and the whole thing plays around his ignorance of the work camp/death camp situation in WW2 Germany. There is just so much he doesn't understand, which we as 2009 viewers know, and the terrible ending is harrowing. The YFG said she "very nearly" cried, and I certainly felt very sad. There is very little in the film about the life inside the camp, because it is mostly about Bruno, of course, so I suggested that we might watch "Schindler's List" at the weekend. I also have the book, "Schindler's Ark", which I read quite often.

Of course, Oskar Schindler is played by Liam Neeson in the film, which brings me to the tragic death last night of his wife, Natasha Richardson. We most recently saw her in "The Parent Trap" which was on several times just around and after Christmas - at least three times, I think, on various channels! She was just 45, and her two sons are 12 and 13 - the EFG is 12 so that really made me feel for those two boys.

All things considered, then, we have a lot to be thankful for, not least our liberty and our health here tonight.