In cinematic terms, the most surefire method to get the tear ducts going is to place a cute child in the middle of a horrific situation and then let the unimaginable tension hit the fan in order to generate as much pathos as possible.

That being said, there are certain situations that should remain sacrosanct and the Holocaust, one of the ugliest and most reprehensible human tragedies of our time, is one of them.

It is therefore all the more depressing to see it pimped out to the degree that it is in “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” an unsettling tale of hope and friendship set on opposite sides of a death-camp prison that has all the subtle qualities of a sledgehammer.

The fanciful tone of the film doesn't contain the epic scope of 1993's “Schindler's List” or the effortless charm of 1998's “Life is Beautiful,” the better dramatic films made on the same topic, so it has to do something. It tries hard to mine real pathos from the idea that innocent children cannot comprehend the horrible realities of a concentration camp until one of them finds himself on the front lines of one.

It has good intentions to offer a poignant historical lesson on the absurd nature of the Holocaust, but once concentration camps and crematoriums are being trotted out for the sole purpose of upping the dramatic ante, it is called hitting the bottom of the barrel. That isn't the intent of the film (at least I hope not), but it is the outcome, and the results are appalling.

In the preposterous premise, the third-grade German hero of the film, Bruno (Asa Butterfield), gets more than he bargained for once his father, a high-connected SS commander (David Thewlis), transplants the clan from their sumptuous home in Berlin to a gloom-filled residential compound in a remote rural setting. There is a death-camp prison situated behind the house and the ubiquitous stench of burning bodies right around the corner, but no one puts these benign facts together until it is too late.

It is rather difficult to fathom that Mom (Vera Farmiga) doesn't suspect that her husband is ordering atrocious Holocaust crimes until near the end or the fact that no one misses Bruno during his frequent outings to the concentration camp.

Since there are no other children on hand and his older sister spends most of her time hanging Hitler propaganda in her room, Bruno sets his sights on the people dressed in striped pajamas toiling behind an electric fence behind the house. He reaches out to one of the prisoners, a child his age named Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), but doesn't understand the differences that separate them.

The more troubling aspect is that the emphasis isn't on Shmuel at all, but on Bruno. In fact, the one thing I learned about Shmuel in the entire running time of the film is his name. The director, Mark Herman, is much more interested in highlighting Bruno's emotional struggle as an innocent caught up in a nightmare that Shmuel is relegated to the sidelines. He is the mere McGuffin of the piece, a cardboard cutout of a character designed to set things in motion. It is not hard to see the direction this thing is going in, right? 

The tender friendship that forms among them is rather cute, but it requires a huge stretch of the imagination for it to ring true. The fact that Shmuel's dirt-smothered face, prisoner garb and missing teeth don't raise a red flag is problematic because Bruno is being taught at home that all people in concentration camps are subhuman, but I suppose that the innocence of childhood is the point of the film.

It is impossible for a child to comprehend the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust despite the fact that it is staring them in the face. It is an historical lesson, and that is fine, but I can't imagine that most children are going to see this and not get horrible nightmares in the process.

The emotional finale is guaranteed to churn stomachs, but not for the right reasons. It is meant to be an ironic ending to the proceedings, and though it is restrained and most of the horror occurs offscreen, it is one of the single most reprehensible Oscar-baiting sequences committed to celluloid in a good long time.

That is the last thing the Holocaust should be used for. There are going to be a lot of people reaching for the tissues, but it doesn’t earn the tears.