One of THOSE Movies

The house is finally quiet. The movie ended over an hour ago, and this is the first time I am allowed to think. To revel in the misery this short movie has forced into my life.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

It's a good movie. I need to show you this movie. It's really great. Why did I ignore the warning that followed? Even I had to cry at the ending.

Well, not this time. In a room of over a dozen I was the only one crying.

It had seemed fine at first. Sure, this won't be too bad. I just won't cry. It wouldn't be hard with so many boys in the room. I admit, I ham it up around my girlfriends and sob at the appropriate queues, but that should work in reverse, right? I should definitely be able to reign in my emotions now, with no supporting audience.

How wrong I was.

This was one of those movies that require several hours to recover from. The kind were you just want to sleep all these imaginary troubles away. That leave you breathless. The kind that I watched tonight with a roomful of boys and acquaintances.

I don't know how long I will be experiencing this movie hangover, but please forgive me if I'm dazed and moody. I'm probably either thinking about this movie, or, even worse, trying to think about it.

SPOILER ALERT.

I got myself really worked up about the ending, and welcomed my mom's theory that, after this tragedy, the father at least would see the error in his ways and come around. Accepting that, however, just opened me up to be ripped to shreds by the remembrance of the end of the war and the penalty for war crimes. 

I was on my way to getting genuinely depressed that the boy's sacrifice hand't changed anything, when it struck me. My family was praying night prayers when my worries were put to rest. Bruno may not have saved his father's life, but he may just have saved his soul. Our human laws must be, in some ways, unforgiving and impersonal, but God is rich in mercy and reads the hearts of sinners. My striped pajama boy may not have died in vain after all.

END SPOILERS.

And that is how my mind words. It warps characters and ideas into real-life scenarios, demanding a moral explanation at every turn. It's sad, the number of stories that I have ruined for myself that way. But then, every blue moon or so, these experiences come along and justify the whole process. My little silver lining.