Vera Farmiga says of her character, "Elsa doesn't think. She doesn't think for herself, she doesn't think deeply. She chooses to be oblivious, concerning herself only with the safety of her family and her position in society - everything else is beyond her periphery.
"She's a sort of accomplice and assistant to her husband's ideals, his desires, his morals and his ambitions. But as she starts to open her eyes to what is unfolding, as she starts to explore for herself, there is a gradual decline of tenderness, trust and respect for her husband. And eventually she stands up and says No!
"Eventually, she condemns what's going on. She even tries to get her husband to see the evil that he's responsible for. But it's too late . . . She has intuitions; she knows that people are being horribly mistreated. But she doesn't look; she doesn't want to see it because seeing it would implicate her husband, and it would implicate herself."
As Bruno's understanding of the camp begins to grow, he is naturally increasingly troubled by the conflict within him, because he still loves his father. He questions his sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) about the place he longs to believe is just an odd farm. Gretel insists that the Jews are 'in there because they're evil. Evil, dangerous vermin.' 'Papa's not horrible is he?' asks Bruno. Gretel assures him that their father is a good man. 'But he's in charge of a horrible place,' Bruno replies.
This disjunction between family man and camp commandant is very troubling for the viewer. It's easy to think of such people as sadistic monsters like Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List). But for the first part of the film, it's hard not to like Bruno's father. This is partly because David Thewlis plays him so warmly, emphasising this true-to-life complexity.
He says, "The challenge is not to play a clichéd, two-dimensional evil Nazi. In my research, I came to learn that my character was very much based on fact. . . . I don't think I've researched a film as much as this for years because I felt a great duty to do that.
"Usually, I take someone from my own life, someone I've met at some point and think, that person could have been like this person. How can I apply those characteristics? Whereas I've never met anyone who at all resembles the character I'm playing here because it's quite unimaginable to understand how one could be a loving father - I'm sure he is a loving father - and at the same time, leave your children at breakfast, go next door - literally - and spend your day amidst these terrible, terrible, terrible atrocities. How do you get your mind set into that?
"I was given a letter that Rudolf Hoess [commandant of Auschwitz] wrote to his children just before his execution. It was lying around at home, on my kitchen table, and I had some neighbours over. I hadn't told them what I was working on. They saw this letter lying around and started reading and when they'd finished it, they turned to me and said, 'Oh, what a beautiful, heart-rending letter this man has written to his children! Who was he? Why was he dying? Was he sick?' To which I replied, 'Yeah, he was VERY sick!' But the letter is clearly written by a man with an intense love for his children; it's very articulate, very touching, almost poetic.
"Try and understand a human being - a sensitive human being - but one who's capable of this! No way can I find it in myself to justify or forgive, obviously. But my job was to somehow find the humanity in him, and not to see all these people - as the cliché goes - just as monsters. They were human beings. And there are people out there today that are just like him."
