Though told from the perspective of a child, "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" is as shattering as any film about the Holocaust could be, perhaps more so.

Director Mark Herman's version of John Boyne's book, which was written for young adults, spares nothing in its depiction of the horrors of the Nazi's Final Solution, to the extent that parts of it are almost unbearable.

The film depicts everyday life in the home of a Nazi officer, Ralf (David Thewlis), the newly installed commandant of a concentration camp. He moves his family, including son Bruno (Asa Butterfield) and daughter Gretel (Amber Beattie), to a home nearby. No one, including his wife, Elsa (Vera Farmiga), knows exactly what's going on in the camp -- 8-year-old Bruno thinks it's a farm and wonders where all the animals are.

Of course, reality is much darker. Elsa's discovery, by way of a particularly heartless soldier, and her reaction are especially intriguing as she tries to process the unimaginable.

Bruno has no friends in his new home, and his father brings in a tutor (Jim Norton), who forbids the boy from reading his beloved adventure books, insisting that he plow through turgid German histories, rewritten from the Nazi perspective. (The effects that the studies have on teenage Gretel are chilling.)

His parents have forbidden Bruno from visiting the camp, but he's 8. He ignores them, finds his way there and meets another boy, Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), on the other side of the barbed wire. They strike up a friendship that's both winning and heartbreaking. 

Neither understands exactly what is going on here, only that they are caught in the middle of it.

There is betrayal, along with an attempt at redemption, as well as unthinkable horror.