The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

He was recalling the less than enthusiastic reaction of the media pack at a Cinema Days screening of his 2003 comedy romance, Hope Springs.

He has been walking on stage to the sound of his own footsteps once more at advance screenings for his new film, but for entirely different reasons. The harrowing ending of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, Mark’s screen adaptation of the children’s book by Irish writer John Boyne, has reduced audiences to silent reflection.

“I’ve done quite a few question-and-answer sessions and the reaction has been huge: I’ve never had such a stunned response to the finish of one of my films,” says Mark, 54 this year. “No one has moved at the end; they stay seated and watch the credits because they need time to compose themselves.”

Herman’s best film since Little Voice opens today with its story of an unexpected friendship between two boys living on opposite sides of a concentration camp fence.

“I felt that next time out, after Hope Springs, I wanted to do something more weighty and that arrived in the form of John Boyne’s book, which was unique in its own perspective,” he says.

“I thought I should get back to films that matter or matter more, and this book was probably the biggest challenge I’ve had as a screenwriter.”

Mark read Boyne’s book in galley form in 2005.

“John shares the same agent as me, so I was ahead of the race, although there was already a lot of good word about it and lots of film companies were already aware of it, but had refrained from doing it because of the subject matter,” he says.

“But I felt it was a chance to make a special film, so I stuck my head out and bought the film rights, as I also wanted a period where I was writing for myself, rather than sending drafts off and getting script notes.”

Boyne’s story is told through the eyes of an eight-old German boy, Bruno, largely shielded from the realities of the Second World War until he moves with his family from Berlin in 1942 to a house that leads to a barbed-wire fence.

His father is to be the Nazis’ new commandant, but Bruno knows nothing of the Holocaust or Final Solution. He forms a forbidden friendship with Shmuel, a Jewish boy held captive in the concentration camp, and although separated by wire, their lives become intertwined.

The subject matter moved Mark in the way that writing the script for his supreme film, the mining community drama Brassed Off, had brought out the best in him.

“Towards the end of 2005, after two or three drafts I sent the script to Miramax, who reacted very strongly and instantly,” says Mark.

“They immediately said ‘let’s go with this’, and if wasn’t yet a green light, it was a flickering green light for six months.”

Both John Boyne and Mark were adamant that the finale of the story should not be watered down for the film.

“At my first meeting with John at a pub in Leeds, when he flew over specially to meet me, I said I would protect the ending, even though it was not within my power. But then I had the same kind of meeting at Miramax, where I said: ‘I don’t want to go down this path without the ending being retained’, and if not in writing, at least verbally, they said yes to me.”

During the shoot, there was a constant running joke of a rumour of an alternative ending. “The crew were winding me up, I suppose because people think you can’t end a film like that,” Mark says.

Without giving the ending away, it is as poignant as it could be.

“It was very interesting to see the reaction at test screenings in America, where they’re used to a chase and a happy ending, so there was a sense of shock that movies could end this way.

“ In fact a lot of people who have read the book and then see the film are still shocked. It’s more powerful still because you see it.”

Mark has written and directed in assorted styles, from the Hollywood farce of Blame It On The Bellboy, through the kitchen-sink drama and brass band music of Brassed Off and the musical bear pit of Little Voice, to the Hollywood rom-com of Hope Springs.

“I took on this film mostly because of the challenge. I’ve dipped into various sorts of films, and this was one where they said it was impossible to turn it into a movie, and that statement was reason enough to want to do it,” he says.

“After two years of doing a rom-com, it was good to do a film about a world that was rather frightening to be in – and there was always that feeling that it might not get made, rather like Brassed Off.”

Not least of his tasks was to decide where he should pitch the film, which has ended up with 12A certificate.

“The book was originally marked as a children’s book, but I didn’t think that children under 12 would understand fully what it was about and certainly wouldn’t get the irony, but we’ve had children saying they didn’t understand the book, but they did understand the film,” Mark says. “It’s not a children’s film, it’s not a traditional family film, but it is a film to go to as a family and to introduce children to the subject of the Holocaust.”

Mark also had to consider the emotions of the two young actors chosen to play Bruno and Shmuel, Asa Butterfield and Jack Scanlon.

“The children were a lot younger than the boys I worked with in Purely Belter. As a challenge it was a lot tougher, especially as Asa was in virtually every scene, which would be tough an adult, let alone a child,” Mark says.

“You have to protect their mental state, as Asa didn’t know much about the Holocaust. They had read the book and script and knew the story, so we decided that we should shoot the end of the film at the end, which is quite rare, but that is how we did it.”

Working with 200 naked Hungarian adult extras for that scene, the children needed preparation and comforting.

“By law, their parents had to be there, so it really was a case of whip them in there, whip them out, and just shoot it once. Even before that it was pretty scary for them being surrounded by this group of pretty smelly Hungarian men,” Mark says.

Making this film took him on to research websites of a politically extreme nature that made him feel he should not be reading them, but everything has been worthwhile.

“The book is already used for educational purposes in schools and now the Film Education website is featuring the film heavily,” he says.

“If you make a film you see it 200 times, and if I watch Brassed Off, I still get sucked in and forget how I made it, and with this film, I’ve watched it hundreds of times, and you forget all about the trials and tribulations of making it.

“What I find most rewarding is people ringing me up and saying they’re still thinking about it two months later, and that’s rare in films today.”

Review: The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas
Running time: 95mins Certificate: 12A

Mark Herman has had an erratic career as a screenwriter and director, but when he hits the emotional spot, as he did in Brassed Off and Little Voice, and does so again in The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas, he makes films that linger in the memory.

It will not be easy to market a film about two boys’ experience of the Holocaust in 1942, drawn together from opposite sides of the fence, but forget the chores of marketing and trust word of mouth. This is a brave piece of film-making, sensitive and angry at the same time, powerful and poignant in its timeless message, and it deserves your attention.

Herman has adapted Irishman John Boyne’s book for children, retaining the story being told by eight-year-old Bruno (Asa Butterfield), as he arrives from Berlin with his Nazi commandant father (David Thewlis), mother (Vera Farmiga) and sister (Amber Beattie) at a desolate house in the country, blissfully unaware that beyond the barbed wire is a concentration camp.

Curiosity overcomes him as he defies his family and takes up his daily position on one side of the fence, coming across the young Jewish boy Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), the boy in the pyjamas of the title, held captive on the other.

What follows, in the words of the film poster, is a story of innocence lost and humanity found, a reflection on the shattering impact of the finale.

Herman’s story-telling through a child’s eye as both and writer is skilled, superbly judged and weighted with innocence, yet he also accommodates adult knowledge informed by hindsight.

Where he adds to the book is in giving an adult perspective, even of Thewlis’s unbending commandant, but in particular of Bruno’s mother, who is initially compliant to her husband but grows to question the Final Solution. Alas, her humanity is found too late, but her mantle is there to be picked up.

Butterfield and Scanlon’s performances are remarkable, natural and uninhibited and inquisitive, both lambs but in different clothing.

And should you be wondering why all the accents are English, Herman has reasons that are both justified and harrowing. “It is my intention to make you question your own nation,” he says. “It’s not just about Germans in the war, but about the fact that people are still capable of doing this.”

The striped pyjamas at the finale – as symbolic as the red coat in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List – make for a universal message, and Herman’s film is an important companion piece to Spielberg’s masterpiece and It’s A Beautiful Life.