The boy and the stripped pj
An important part of life is to have a sense of identity, culture and to belong. Sometimes we have to sacrifice some of our Identity to fit in, but we can learn new things and grow our Identity. A sense of belonging means you feel you are In the right place, your comfortable being yourself. While many people belong, there are also many people who don’t belong, either by having a lack of friends, not fitting in or finding their surrounding new or unsure. In 2008 mark Hermes produced the movie the Boy In the Stripped Pajamas that has both aspect of belonging.
In the Immigrant Chronicles by Peter Crooknecks, he writes is poems about his life experiences and weather or not if he belonged. 2 poems of his, from the immigrant chronicles that show a lack of belonging are “In the Folk Museum” and “The Migrant Hostel”. The Boy In the Stripped Pajamas Is a movie about a 8 year old boy called Bruno, him and his family are made to move to a place called out with (Auschwitz), they move houses as his father is a highly ranked solider. Their new house is in sight of a connection camp, because of this Bruno is not allowed to do his most favorite thing explore, and must stay inside of the yard.
The movie is set in World War 2, Germany After they move the first scene, where Bruno feels a sense of belonging Is when he runs out of the yard into the forest, the camera follows him by a tracking shot, this highlights the joy he gets from exploring. The overgrown surrounding highlights his freedom, after having nothing to do and no one to talk to; when he is running you can see how he feels a sense of belonging and identity. The closer Bruno gets to the fence the brighter the colors get; this reinforced the tone of Bruno and his happiness. Hen Bruno first comes across the fence and sees Samuel, he doesn’t understand hat the connection camp is, he sees Samuel as a new friend that will be able to play with him. When Bruno and Samuel first meet the shot goes between the two of them, when the shot is on Bruno the background is bright yellow flowers, Bruno is in nice clean clothes, when the shots goes to Samuel the background it is dull grey colors and he Is wearing old dirty stripped pajamas, the dull colors shows us, that Samuel doesn’t fit In to his surrounding, he doesn’t belong In a contention camp at 8 years old.
The scene gives us the visual clues that enabled us to compare their lives. We’re not meant to be friends you and me, we’re meant to be enemies did you know,” said by Bruno to Samuel, this shows the culture barrier between them. In one of the last scene with Bruno and Samuel Is when Bruno crosses the fence to help as he realizes what the camp is the, weather starts to storm and turn dull grey tones, which creates tension. The last view of Bruno and Samuel is when they get taken to the gas chamber with other prisoners.
The view is them clutching hands, it shows even in death, they friendship is united, that in the end they belonged to each other s friends. In the folk museum is about the poet being in a museum, he can’t connected to the museum, because he feels like he is in a different time zone, that his surrounding aren’t from where he is used, he doesn’t belong in that time zone. The poem suggests the importance of belonging to a place and how it makes you feel. In stanza 1 the words “darkness” and “betray’ creates a tone of isolated and alienation, it creates the atmosphere of lonely, sadness and sinister.
In the movie, Bruno feels alienated, when he moved he has no one his age as him and wasn’t allowed to explore, he feels like he can’t belong to his new surrounding, that there is nothing their for him. The extending metaphor of the words, autumn, yellow and brown reinforced a mood of dull colors that creates a feeling of being alone and unpleasant that he isn’t happy where he is. In the finial stanza line 3, “l leave without, wanting a finial look. ” This is Lorraine; it creates the effect of a fast escape. When Bruno starts running he doesn’t look back.
It shows when you can to start to feel like you are belonging again, you don’t need to look back you know what’s right and you Just go for it. The Migrant Hostel is about the experiences of the author and others at a migrant hostels. Crooknecks creates the feeling of disappointment through the many reference of them having no control over their lives. The poem to me talks about the hardship and barriers of creating a new life. In stanza 1 line 1,2 “no one kept count, of all the coming and going”, this creates the feeling like they weren’t important.
The poem can relate the Samuel and the other member of the connection camp. The people from the connection camp are not treated right. “Those people, well their not really people at all, Bruno”, Bruno father ells Bruno, this shows how they can’t belong as they aren’t even considered to be people at all. In stanza 3 line 2″we lived like birds of passage” this is a simile, the we in the sentence can refer to everyone in the camp that even know they don’t belong they are starting a new Journey and they all want to fly out.
It also refers to the way migrants are still in transit as everything is changing and they are being constantly moved around. Which can make them have a lack of security and belonging to the place The line “a barrier at the main gate, sealed off the highway’ is making the separation f them and Australia, it makes them feel powerless, the highway symbioses the fence is a recurring motif in the movie, many scenes including where they meet, is the fence.
The fence becomes a barrier between their friendships, but it is what ties they together. The gate in the poem can give them hope; it could represent the new start, that once they’re through the gate their started. The Boy in the Stripped pajamas, In the Folk Museum and The Migrant hostel shows the importance of belonging to people and place and how it can relate to making people unhappy.
