Europa Europa
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Movie Reviews of Europa Europa
Movie Review: Europa Europa
Summary: 5 Stars
In 1938, on the eve of his Bar Mitzvah, Solomon Perel's life is turned upside down when a Nazi rampage results in his sister's death and Solomon (Marco Hofschneider) and his family is forced to move to Lózd, Poland. However, the inevitable German occupation forces Solomon and his brother Issac (Rene Hofschneider) to flee east and is seperated. Solomon meets a kind Soviet officer and is taken to a Russian orphanage and becomes a Koccmatol- the Soviet equivalent to the Hitler Jugend with simular religious fixations for their leaders. He spends three years there in Communist indocrination until the Hitler-Stalin pact is broken and Germany invades, leaving him to run before getting caught. Solomon convinces the Nazis that he is a 'pure bred German' named Joseph Peters and they find his Russian languge skills usefull.A gay soldier that nearly molests him while bathing finds out his secret (Non-Jewish Germans even today is seldom circumcised), but because he is a 'different kind of German', he befriends him instead of exposing him. After a brief battle that leaves him as the only survivor in his group, an attempt to defect to the Russians instead results in their capture and inadvertantly becomes a hero. A German officer takes a liking to him and holds an interest in adopting him, then sends him to a elite Hitler Youth school, where he would have a more difficult time hiding who he is. There, he is competitive, popular and deemed to be the 'jewel of authentic Aryan purity' by a series of head measurments and comparison samples. He also falls in love with a beautiful and loyal Nazi girl, Leni (French actress Julie Delpy) whom he cannot be intimant with for obvious reasons and she instead uses his roomate so she can offer a child to the Reich.
After a few monthes of close calls and a painful attempt to restore his foreskin, Solomon/Jupp fights against the Russian Front, deserts his company and surrenders to the Russians only to be saved by the skin of his teeth when his brother reconizes him before being executed.
Interesting facts:
The ending is a cinematic misnomer of a true story from what I've read as Solomon was merely liberated by Americans who learns the truth with the help of his brother.
I saw a special about the holocaust with an interview with Solomon Perel, and he has blue eyes. To be honest, I thought Marco and his brother, Rene had rather distinctive (and hansom) Semitic features and it does nicely in disproving Goethe's Aryan purity test in the classroom scene.
Rene Hofschneider was origionally chosen to play Solomon, but after a couple years of budget constrants, by the time the film was set to shoot, it was decided that he was too old (I assume that he was over 20, cause his younger brother was over 18 himself at the time) and the role was given to Marco and he was cast as Issac.
Now if your moral sensibilities are going to make you complain about the male nudity and the mature themes, which is common in Europian cinema, then maybe you should stick to the flat and mundane American films you feel so safe with.
Movie Review: A startling true story of survival...
Summary: 5 Stars
I adore European films (German, Russian, Hungarian) and so I was really anxious to get my hands on `Hitlerjunge Salomon' (also known as `Europa Europa'). The film is gloriously shot, with beautifully engaging cinematography; from claustrophobic indoor sets to vastly luminous outdoor cascades, but it is the engaging story itself that will leave you more than spellbound. `Europa Europa' is a true story that is as tragic as it is uplifting as we watch this young man struggle to survive in a cold world bent on his destruction.
`Europa Europa' tells us the story of young Salomon `Solly' Perel who is separated from his family during the Holocaust. Solly and his brother Isaak are separated while trying to flee to Poland. In order to spare his life, young Solly poses as a German and joins the German army. He becomes a war hero and is accepted into the Hitler Youth. He becomes everything he knows he should loathe in order to save himself, and this transformation takes its toll on the man he is slowly becoming. As he forms relationships with individuals who would kill him if they only knew, Solly is constantly guarded, never allowing anyone to really get inside of his soul; and this barrier begins to rot away at the core of this young man.
The film as a whole reminds me somewhat of `The Pianist' in its ability to truly move a person. It is a courageous tale of the triumph of spirit and survival, and young Marco Hofschneider is miraculously moving (as was Adrian Brody).
Hofschneider marvelously shifts between his characters emotional state, allowing us to see him for who he truly is, and not the guarded façade he puts up for those around him. We never lose sight of the fact that Solly is but a boy, really, but we also see how his dire situations age him drastically. His fragile movements, subtle and powerful, cause our own emotions to stir. The actors around Hofschneider all do their best to elevate his performance, but in the end they all take a backseat to his brilliance.
It's really no wonder the Academy nominated this film for Adapted Screenplay; it's only a shame that German didn't submit the film for `foreign picture' for I'm sure it would have won the Oscar.
Much like `The Pianist', `Europa Europa' feels as though it will never reach its uplifting conclusion, but it does, and when it does we are left with such a warm and blessed feeling in our souls. The film is glorious from start to finish, depicting the horrors of war and the effect it has on our youth (the character of young Leni alone is a tragic warning of what war is doing to our children) as well as the touching realities of family and that everlasting bond between blood. There are few films that can truly inspire with such effortless ease, and `Europa Europa' is a dynamic example of how effective good filmmaking can be.
Movie Review: A World Turned Upside Down and Inside Out: Could You Survive
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the best films in the genre--historial film from autobiography. Marco Hofschneider brings to brilliant life the story of Salamon Perel, a German Jew. From the days of Kristallnacht--the Night of Broken Glass, when Jewish businesses were trashed and vandalized throughout Germany, to his final reunification with his brother--to poignant to say more about this here...this is a cinematic masterpiece.I've seen few films that capture the turmoil of adolescent identity and identification so well. True, the Nazi era is the backdrop, but the themes couldn't be more universal. In that respect, it is also more relevant today, in 2004, than during the 1980s, when it was filmed--especially in America, where the American identity has been deconstructed so as to be hardly palpable. Also, it is equally relevant in Europe, where national distinctions could meld into a Confederacy if not a Union of some power.
Politics aside, this is an intensely personal film, one where the unquestioned identity of youth (German) falls victim to oncoming War and cruel happenstance. Perel must continually revise his vision OF himself and FOR himself, and at one point wishes for nothing more than to be an Nazi, for a beautiful young German girl becomes enfatuated with him. How did he end up in this position, wearing the uniform of the Hitler Youth at an Elite boarding school in Berlin? Or lose his virginity to a high-ranking female Party member while he is escorted by train from the Eastern Front to Berlin, as a Folk Hero (Volksdeutscher Held). Perhaps you think it unimaginable. I do not.
I've seen places in German where the remnants of Jewish culture and tradition are clear as day--such as a former High School for Jews in Berlin--with Hebrew and German inscribed clearly in the stones.
No, though Germany seems to some a heartless pillar of unemotionality, efficiency, heartlessness, the German characters in Europa, Europa are as human as those found anywhere. They fall victim to their personal aspirations, desire to please, deceitfulness, betrayal...simply put, human.
Although current fashion is to think of the period as one of the "banality of evil" (attributed to Hannah Arendt, Holocaust scholar), this film exposes the period as one more of human triumph and tragedy, and that, while we grow into adulthood, our personal identity is as much at the mercy of the passage of time and events as a unique, solitary construction.
See this film! It will draw you into the themes of Life, Love, and Redemption, and be over leaving you desperate for more.
Movie Review: Chameleon of the isms
Summary: 5 Stars
Salomon Perel's war story is all the more unsettling for being true.Directed by the Polish Jewish director, Agnieszka Holland in 1991.Salomon(Solly)Perel(Marco Hofschneider) is a young German Jew,whose father is a Polish Jewish shop-keeper living in Germany with his family.There is a Pogrom against Jews on Kristallnacht,Solly and his brother Isaak,flee east into Poland.His circumcision is shown at the start of the film and will be the defining event in his identity.Solly gets split up from his brother and ends up in a Russian orphanage in Grodno,where he learns to be a fervent young Stalinist infatuated by his tutor.He becomes a model Komsomol and learns to speak Russian.He spouts indoctrination like `Religion is the opium of the masses'.
With the German invasion of Russia the school is uprooted and moves east,he gets separated and becomes a young German to the German soldiers,an interpreter who usefully speaks Russian for his unit,known as Joseph(Jupp) Peters,a favourite of the German soldiers.His ethnicity becomes known to a homosexual German soldier but he keeps it secret.He becomes an accidental hero after all his unit are killed and he surrenders to the Russians,only to find out that it's the Russians surrendering to him,with the German army behind him.The Commanding officer wants to adopt him and wants to send his `son' to one of the best German military schools,an elite youth academy.He falls for lovely,Jew-hating Aryan lass,Leni(Julie Delphy).But by this point the effort of hiding behind so many masks,not to mention hiding the most tangible physical evidence of his identity,is beginning to take its toll.
The film covers the absurdity of adapting to every changing event and yet the need to to survive at all costs. Ironies bite hard and occasional farcical moments add an unsettling edge to Perel's fortunes,e.g. in the class about Aryan racial superiority,when Solly is judged as not pure Aryan,but `Aryan enough'.This shows up racist pseudo-science.He also makes friends where he can,even with Germans who are anti-semitic.Perel is ambivalent towards all these people,Communist or Nazi,his chameleon-like skills bring him among.The film does not evade the horrors,but it alludes to the Holocaust only obliquely.There is no time to reflect or moments of conscience. Perel's brief but chilling glimpse of the Lodz ghetto is all the grimmer for being set against his picaresque, spirited progress.The real Solly is shown at the end as he is now in Israel,singing a song.This film covers a lot of history with a light touch.
Movie Review: A Great Journey
Summary: 5 Stars
The first thing I think of everytime I watch this film is- why is it not better known? I often name this film when people ask me for my favourites - and I receive the common response "What movie is that?"
I first watched it as a young(ish) boy who was studying the second world war. It brought to life so many hideous things one has read about, but through the eyes of a character who could speak for the 'goodies' and the 'baddies'
Europa Europa is a great journey for one young man, and for all those that watch his adventures on te screen. Subtle peformances and some marvellous concepts really bring this one home.
Perhaps the special effects are not all that flash, but it's all to do with the charm of this film. Watching the film in both German and Russian gives it such a state of authenticity - with Marco Hopfscheider delivering a wonderful performance as young Jup.
Watching this film, you know the director achieved his goal, as you sympathise with members of the Nazi regime, and of course with the persecuted Jewish. Others in the story - the Polish, etc are also given a voice.
Some people find the ending; with the real Solly singing his song - somewhat tacky. I find that it adds to the realism of the film - and reminds you that this is not a make believe story, nor a Hollywood creation: but the real events of what many a person had to experience in the Third Reich.
Please watch it and make others do so too - perhaps next time when I say "Europa Europa" - the person I am speaking to may say "Oh of course, I Love that film!"