A thank you speech

Wow! This is epic! I will speak quite briefly but not as briefly as Alfred Hitchcock. I may have little more to say. I’d like to thank you all I have worked with and who have helped me during my career, fellow actors and actresses, directors, producers, family and friends, my cat, the old lady from the next door and her cat too. I’d like to give special thanks to our director and producer, my friend, Clint Eastwood. He found me and gave me opportunity to take part making this magnificent film. Clint is a wonderful person and the best director I have ever worked with. Despite his age, he’s still sharp and just won an Academy Award for best directing. Jesus! Just look at that old fart. He should be on a wheelchair in a retirement home eating porridge, but no. Here he still is stealing our Oscars right in front of us, teasing young aspiring actors and actresses, giving us valuable advice and making great movies. Every director and actor should learn from him. Clint once asked in one of his movies “Do you feel lucky, punk?” and I have to admit that I do. You made my day. Thank you.

 

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – Differences between the novel and the film

During the Second World War a 9-year-old boy, Bruno lives with his family in Berlin. His father, who is an SS officer, gets a promotion and they have to move to the countryside. Bruno notices that right behind their new house is “a farm” and he is curious why “the farmers” wear pajamas all day long. Bruno is bored because he doesn’t have any friends in their new home and there is nothing to do, so one day he decides to go to “the farm” and meets a Jewish boy, Shmuel, who is on the other side of an electric fence. They make friends and Bruno starts to visit him regularly by the fence.

 

I saw The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ movie version first and read the novel after that. There aren’t any huge differences between the novel and the film. The filmmakers obviously tried to be loyal to John Boyne’s novel. Of course there are a few differences, but they don’t change the plot very much. Let’s start with the location. Perhaps the first bigger difference I noticed while reading the book was that the concentration camp is right behind Bruno’s new home (less than 50 meters away I recall) and Bruno can clearly see it from his window. The camp is also described to be huge and Shmuel says that there are thousands of prisoners in the camp. But in the film the camp is on the other side of a small forest (maybe less than a kilometer away I think) and Bruno can barely see it from the window. The camp also looks relatively small. In the book it’s revealed that their new home is in Poland because Shmuel says so and Bruno always pronounces the name of their new home incorrectly and calls it “Out-With” (means Auswitz). I don’t remember that anyone used that name or mentioned Poland in the film. In fact, I thought that they were in Southern Germany while watching it.

 

What comes to the characters, I think the biggest difference between the book and the film is Bruno’s father. In the film he seems to be nicer and concentrates more on his family, but in the novel he’s a more distant and cold person, whose life revolves around his job. Bruno is a little bit more naive in the book. Gretel, Bruno’s big sister, is quite similar in the film and the novel, but Bruno’s mother is slightly different. In the film she is more emotional and sympathetic. Lieutenant Kotler, who is one of father’s employees, is quite young in the novel which was a little surprise. In the film looks like he is nearly 30 years old, but the book reveals he’s only 19, which feels pretty unrealistic in my opinion. How can a 19-year-old boy be an SS lieutenant?

 

Some scenes have been removed and changed a little bit in the movie. In the book there is a weird chapter which tells about the Fury coming for dinner in the family’s home in Berlin to discuss the father’s promotion and new job. The Fury turns out to be Hitler (he calls his escort Eva and Bruno notices that The Fury has an almost invisible moustache). The chapter is very unrealistic. I’m not an expert, but I think that if the leader of the Third Reich came for dinner, there would be more bodyguards than just Eva. The film ends when Bruno gets gassed, but the novel tells briefly what happens to his family after that.

 

I also noticed that Bruno’s age had been changed in the movie. In the book Bruno was born in April 15^th, 1935 and he is nine years old at the beginning of the story, but in the film he is only eight and I can’t see why. In the film everything happens during one summer I think, but in the novel Bruno dies a year after they moved to “Out-With”.  I think that the moviemakers made the change, because in the novel the time jumps from the summer directly to the next spring. The war is under way in both the film and the novel, but the film doesn’t tell the exact year. The novel doesn’t tell it directly either, but I have figured it out: I think that the exact year at beginning of the book is 1943 because at some point some soldiers talk about the year 1942 like it’s already gone and Bruno should turn nine in 1943. Bruno dies in spring 1944 and a year later his father figures out what happened to Bruno and after that foreign soldiers arrest him (Germany surrendered in spring 1945).

 

I liked the film and the novel but the novel was naturally better, because it gave more information about everything, especially Bruno’s thoughts. The film was just a sum up, but still worth watching.

The body as art

Before only seamen and convicts had tattoos but nowadays they are quite popular and so are piercings. I’m not a very big fan of tattoos and piercings, because I often find them a little bit ugly. Of course earrings look beautiful in women’s ears and sometimes even in men’s ears too but men look stupid if they have an earring in both ears. I couldn’t get a piercing or even an earring. I think that earrings are enough, but sometimes a suitable piercing in a woman’s navel can look quite nice too. It still looks nasty when someone’s piercing hobby has gone too far.

 

Like I said, I don’t like tattoos very much either. I think that especially big ones can ruin the look of the skin. Tattoos quite often look silly because people get skulls, animals, flowers and stars and the tattoos have no meaning. People just take them because they look cool. I think that tattoos are okay if they remind you of significant moments in your life, like your child’s birth or an unforgettable trip or event with your friends or loved ones. If I got a tattoo, it should have a special meaning and it would be quite small and simple. I would possibly get it on my shoulder or arm.

Finnish film production

 

I think that national film production is very important and I have an extremely good reason for that. For example, from an American perspective Finland is a tiny outback in the armpit of Russia. Do you think that the Americans in Hollywood are interested in making a movie which tells about Finnish culture, history or phenomena? I doubt it strongly. If we don’t make movies which tell about things related to our country and culture ourselves, who will then? Besides, who can portray these things better than us?

 

 have noticed that we practically never make pure action films, horror films or thrillers here in Finland and I can’t see why. Perhaps they make such good films in Hollywood and it’s hard to make these kinds of films in Finland so that they would differ from their American counterparts in a good way. Action films are also very expensive and we certainly don’t have tens of millions of dollars to make them. This is one thing where American and Finnish movies differ. Americans spend a lot more money on making films than we do. Even American comedies can have enormous budgets, for example a film named There’s Something About Mary, which you may have seen, It’s just an ordinary comedy, starring Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz, The film quite good, it doesn’t look expensive and hasn’t special effects, but its budget was roughly 23 million dollars! Can anybody even believe it? It takes skill to waste so much money on that kind of a movie. A big budget doesn’t always mean that the movie is good, but it certainly helps to film epic movies successfully, like The Lord of the Rings trilogy (budget $281 000 000, box office $2.92 billion).

 

Finnish film production is strongly based on dramas, comedies and historical movies (often related to war). I have noticed that Finnish dramas quite often have comical elements, even if the film’s theme is serious, like Hellsinki (Rööperi) and the original Vares movies, starring Juha Veijonen. Finns obviously like to laugh. Everyone must have noticed too, how movie makers recycle the actors. Every movie must have Kari Hietalahti acting a more or less simple and hilarious character. I think that this “recycling” has gone too far. They use star actors even in very minor roles. For instance, in Vesa-Matti Loiri’s comeback movie, Tie pohjoiseen, there’s a scene, where Loiri’s character robs a supermarket. And guess what, Krista Kosonen plays the cashier, who is seen in the movie only about five seconds and doesn’t even say a single word! How much did she get paid for that? Finland has plenty of talented and aspiring new actors and actresses. Movie makers should give more responsibility to them. Tie pohjoiseen is still an awesome movie, but that is ridiculous.

 

I think that we are quite good at making movies and our movies are of a quite good quality although the budgets aren’t very big. Finnish movies have won international awards and the rights of some movies have been sold to other countries. A couple of Finnish actors and actresses have even made their way to Hollywood, like Irina Björklund and Samuli Vauramo. And director Renny Harlin has been there for several decades already.

 

In my opinion, Finnish and European movies have a lot in common. Of course British and German movies usually have bigger budgets, but not as big as the American ones, not even close. I think that the box office of a movie is more important to Americans than Europeans. Here in Europe we pay more attention to the storyline of a movie. In America a geek creates as many new action scenes and special effects as possible and another dumbass writes a weak screenplay, where all the effects and scenes can be included. Then they hire a muscular man to handle guns (Stallone, The Big Arnie etc.) and a beautiful woman, who has used more Botox and silicon than water in her whole life to play the leading roles. I’m fed up with action movies so I watch them very seldom these days. I like the Finnish movies, but I don’t know if I prefer them to American ones. Both Americans and Europeans have made fantastic movies.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008) - film review 

During the Second World War an 8-year-old boy, Bruno (Asa Butterfield) lives with his family in Berlin. His father (David Thewlis), who is an SS officer, gets a promotion and they have to move to the countryside. Bruno notices that near their new house is “a farm” and he is curious why “the farmers” wear pajamas all day long. Bruno is bored because he doesn’t have any friends in their new home and there is nothing to do, so one day he decides to go to “the farm” and meets a Jewish boy, Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), who is on the other side of an electric fence. They make friends and Bruno starts to visit him regularly by the fence.

The film was a pretty good but somehow it was a little bit lame. Especially the friendship between Bruno and Shmuel should have been deeper in my opinion. Even at the end of the movie they hardly knew each other. I can’t say anything bad about the actors. Actually they were very convincing and everyone did their job well. The young boy’s innocence and unawareness was touching. Bruno had no idea what was going on and Shmuel seemed like he was oblivious to the seriousness of the situation too, otherwise he probably wouldn’t have encouraged Bruno to come to the concentration camp. I don’t think that he was cruel and did it for revenge.

The staging was very good. The filmmakers have clearly paid attention to the look of the film. I could also feel the atmosphere and people’s conflicting opinions in wartime Germany.

My favorite parts of the movie are probably when young lieutenant Kurt Kotler (Rupert Friend) accidentally reveals to Bruno’s mother (Vera Farmiga) what they really do to the Jews and the following discussions between the father and the mother. The family’s dining scene with Kotler and grandfather was also exciting.

 

I would recommend this film to people who are interested in the Holocaust and its horrors. It’s very interesting and terrifying at the same time how on earth did a tiny man with funny moustache and a loud voice manage to raise an entire nation against the Jews. “They smell even worse when they burn, don't they.”