Compare and Contrast
Slumdog Millionaire/The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
The old trope of the pure and innocent child is inverted and taken to extremes in two films, Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008). Although the two have vast differences in time and place, they are united by the commonality of the threats facing children. What we get from these films is that the approaches made by children often differ from those made by adults.
The two brothers at the centre of Slumdog Millionaire (trailer above) have had interesting childhoods given their circumstances. The viewer gets to see the action through the eyes of Jamal as he sits on the set of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and reminisces about his relationship with his brother Salim. The older they get, the further apart they get from each other, both physically and socially. Also, since they grew up in the streets, they did not have an adult figurehead to guide them, leaving them to fend for themselves. I found that the theme of social class is by far the overarching theme throughout the entire film, and is the main influence in Jamal's interrogation session. Throughout their lives, I paid attention to the risks that the brothers had taken and the ways in which they got by within a rigid class hierarchy. Also, the attachment theory, which emphasizes the attachment of a child to the guardian, is turned on its head; the boys decide that they would be attached to each other.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (trailer above) centres around an unlikely friendship between a German boy and a Jewish prisoner trapped in a Nazi prison camp during World War II. Even though they realize the grave consequences if they are caught communicating with each other, but the two remain resilient in maintaining their relationship. At first, his parents do not suspect anything about them, even if his father is an SS officer. Later in the film, he starts to question the motives of the Nazi regime and whether the prisoners may actually be innocent despite the justifications for their incarceration. As Hannah Arendt had said, "Each generation brings that which is new, that which the world has not seen and experienced before." The "new" thing being introduced here is the potential for peace, and the boys' friendship symbolizes a cry for a truce between factions. The cry is, of course, interrupted by the German boy's parents, who do not know about his secret but who are still subject to the mindset of the time.
One contrast between the two is in the exposure to violence early in their lives. While Salim embraced the dangers of street life in Slumdog, the German boy in Striped Pajamas defied the wishes of the regime by infiltrating the prison camp. The troubles they had faced for the sake of their respective bonds truly challenges the idea of childhood innocence that has long been present in the minds of many. In a sense, then, these harsh experiences would allow these children to see the world more critically right through to adulthood.