The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas (12A)

The holocaust and the child are not entities often conjoined in polite conversation. The horrific mass murder, burned into the social consciousness of a post-war West, is found at its most macabre in the reviled concentration camps of Nazi Germany: Auschwitz the hellish paradigm. The unenviable task of British director Mark Herman was to intermingle the two, in a way that was both palatable to the adult and accessible to the young.

Better known for his working-class brit-drama (Little Voice, Brassed Off), Herman tackles altogether weightier fare for his first directorial venture in five years. Last seen at the helm of mediocre Colin Firth vehicle Hope Springs, it may be his lightness of touch that landed him this particular gig. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is not a film sunk with directorial depth, but the foreboding that hangs over the work lends it a substance it might otherwise have lacked.

Our hero Bruno embodies an untarnished ignorance which, combined with a winsome inquisitiveness, makes the film both suitable and accessible for children. Blissfully free of the dread ingrained into adults by history lessons and Remembrance Day services, younger viewers will be swept up by the tale of an eight year old boy, "unfairly" ousted from his home in idyllic Berlin. Relocated to an austere, geometrical abode a stone's throw from an unnamed concentration camp. Spurred on by the allure of the unknown, Bruno seeks out the 'farm' he glimpsed through his bedroom window, only to discover fellow eight-year-old (and bedraggled camp inmate) Shmuel. The spark of their illicit friendship is at the heart of the film's message of equality, not to mention its cataclysmic finale.

Benoît Delhomme's cinematography is not subtle, but it is effective. Bruno is draped in a warm yellow light, lending the long close-up shots of his befuddled features an angelic quality that serves to consistently reinforce his youth. By contrast, the world around him resembles a Michael Mann cityscape. Lit in icy blues, a mechanical rigour bleeds from his surroundings. A particularly steely shade is reserved for Bruno's military father.

The remaining sparse rays of warmth are preserved for Bruno's mother, an exceptional Vera Farmiga. Maternal compassion and authority eke from her every action, until the seeds of decay planted by proximity to the concentration camp begin to eat away at her heart. As she draws away from the reality her husband inhabits, she also draws away from our view. It is no coincidence this coincides with a drop in quality in the second act.

What shakes the film from its ponderous middle third can only be accurately described as harrowing. A cleverly crafted climax, thanks to John Boyne's source novel, may have young companions wondering why tears fill your eyes. Wrenching at some of our deepest emotional fears, your mind will clamber for an escape as events trudge menacingly towards atrocity. The journey's end is one of the most unpleasant, gripping, and ultimately fitting, denouements you are ever likely to see.

Were Bruno to slowly develop a realization of the unmitigated horrors that surround him and his titular playmate, the same evolution would no doubt occur in the mind of young viewers. That it does not is a vital reprieve from facts that may well be too harsh to deal with at such a tender age. As it is, probing questions are left mercifully unanswered in what serves as a subtle introduction to modern history's most vital lesson.