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The past year has seen a rash of films dealing with the Holocaust. This week alone there are two releasing on DVD, while Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds continues to rampage at the cinemas. Of them all, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has proved to be one of the more contentious.

For some audiences and reviewers this is a moving and affecting story about a dark period in modern history as seen through the eyes of a child. For others, it is an insulting, sanitised and trivialised account of remembered horrors. The internationally best-selling novel of the same name, on which it is based, has faced similar attacks.

The movie tells the story of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of a concentration camp commandant, who befriends a young Jewish boy; a prisoner in his father's camp. The friendship that builds between the two boys through the camp's fence, and Bruno's gradual understanding of his father's day job, form a kind of parable.

For much of this film, there is a prevailing innocence. However, the subject manner and the slap-in-the-face ending earns this film a well-deserved M rating, meaning it may not be for the everyone.

Consensus: A touching and haunting family film that deals with the Holocaust in an arresting and unusual manner, and packs a brutal final punch of a twist.