Popular reviews

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★ 2

  Europa Europa possesses an extraordinary narrative which is an adaption of Solomon Perel’s 1989 autobiography, who was a German Jewish boy who escaped persecution during the Holocaust by impersonating a Nazi. The direction by Agnieszka Holland (The Secret Garden) manages to transform an incredible and historical memoir of intolerance into a gripping film complemented with a couple of strikingly absurdist dream segments; one of them encompassing Hitler and Stalin engaging in a waltz! It conserves an ironical tone where the details of the succession of life-threatening situations for Solomon are rendered utterly compelling and makes for an intriguingly personal and nonfictional story.

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  Review by Lise ★★★

  I didn't know that this film was based on a true story. My husband pointed it out as the credits rolled, when he noticed that the older Solomon Perel was being played by the real Solomon Perel.

  This information proved to be a bit of a relief, but also raised questions about my reaction. Why should the things that bothered me about the film be forgiven now that I know its origin? I don't like to read anything about a film before viewing it. Is this a huge mistake? I sure would have come off as stupid had I written what I was going to write... It just raised all those questions about how to view films, you know, should…

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  Review by Conchobarre ★★★½ 4

  This is the third film I've seen this year where a Jewish person becomes a Nazi. In Europa Europa a Polish Jewish boy played by Marco Hofschneider finds himself separated from his family into a Russian orphanage. He learns to quote Stalin, goes to the front with the Germans as their interpreter then ends up as a Hitler Youth. He's a very adaptable boy. His biggest source of anxiety (amongst many) is that someone will see his circumcised penis. Luckily the Hitler Youth shower in their dacks.

  Apparently this is based on a true story, but deviates somewhat from Solomon Perel's memoir.
  Edit:
  Re-reading this review I realised it comes across as flippant which wasn't on purpose. This is actually…

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  Review by Christian ★★★★½ 3

  The German title Hitlerjunge Salomon made me expect a bulky biopic with an emphasis on the moral pointing finger. Its international title Europa Europa then made me fear even worse: it could be pretentious. Luckily, I put it on anyways and let myself get proven wrong.

  This film depicts the true survival story of the German Jewish boy Solek "Sally" Perel who survived WWII by pretending to be member of the Hitler Youth. The material gets elevated by writer and director Agnieszka Holland's decision to take this framework and add discussions of what it means to be raised on the basis of religion, Nazism or Stalinism.

  Every scene and character in this is charged: we get antisemitic Polish communists, a…

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  Review by James 🇺🇦 ★★★★

  Plays out like an absurdist farce and yet truth is stranger than fiction in Agnieszka Holland's Europa Europa, a historical WW2 drama based on the real life accounts of Solomon Perel, a Jewish German who miraculously manages to evade capture by posing first as a communist, then a front-line German soldier and finally, most perilously, as a Hitler Youth right under the enemy's nose.

  Perel, like Władysław Szpilman in The Pianist, is a morally malleable protagonist who earns our sympathy not through heroic acts but simply by his will to survive and ability to adapt as the situation requires. The film explores themes of identity and youth indoctrination whilst telling an incredible story, naturally Holland embellishes certain details for artistic…

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  Review by EnteredTheVoid ★★★★½

  So good they named it twice

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  Review by Jonathan White ★★★½

  As with most screenings in our Sunday Morning With Coffee series, nature dictated a mid-film break. At this point the main thing I was having problems with was sympathizing with the protagonist Solly. I felt that the character was too morally vacant to garner the sympathy needed. Also, he seemed too rather fast and loose with his ideology.

  As we settled back in, I was trying to keep in mind that this was a 16 year old. That made me feel a bit more sympathetic towards him. Now the issue that was bothering me was his sexuality. Knowing that your genitals will reveal you, Solly seemed a bit too inclined to initiate romantic connections. The scene that stuck out for…

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  Review by Enfant du Siècle ★★★½

  Historical drama that chronicles the youth of Solomon Perel, a German Jewish boy who, after the outbreak of World War II, will have to do whatever it takes to survive the maelstrom of hate and violence around him. The odyssey begins with his escape to Poland where he ends up interned in a Komsomol and receives Communist indoctrination, until the moment he poses as a Volksdeutscher, to later serve as an interpreter for the German army and finally be sent to a Hitlerjugend Academy. Europa Europa is one of those stories that would be absolutely unthinkable if it were not based on true events, although of course artistic licenses were taken. It is both a story of survival and a…

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  Review by williamfaeleith ★★★★½ 2

  Re-watch of an old favourite, Agnieszka Holland's Europa Europa in a beautiful 2016 restored version (Criterion Blu-ray).
  Based on the true story of Solomon Perel, a German-born Jewish boy who escaped persecution by the Nazis by pretending to be an ethnic German, which basically involves hiding the fact that he is circumcised - which includes some painfully unsuccessful attempts to sew what was left of his foreskin back into place.
  His story from the day before his intended bar mitzvah in 1938 until the end of the war in 1945 is an amazing one and includes (***spoilers ahead***) 1) escaping from an attack on his home during Kristallnacht that killed his sister, 2) moving to Poland with his family but…

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  Review by eely 🌻 ★★★★

  you can feel the mastery behind the camera in every moment of this film. agnieszka holland is a revelation.

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  Review by Brian Formo ★★★★

  There are many narrative happy coincidences to recreate the immense true story of a 15-yeaar-old Jewish boy who, post-Kristallnacht, flees to a Russian-run orphanage and then joins the Germans to save his own hide (being able to translate German) and accidentally becomes a war hero and is sent to the most elite school for Hitler Youth. Maybe the Academy bestowed Best Adapted Screenplay upon the vastly inferior Jojo Rabbit to atone for not awarding this the Oscar during the (justified) steamrolling year of The Silence of the Lambs. (This would make a great double feature with another German film from the same year, The Nasty Girl).

  While some of the occurrences that get our young antagonist of out of a…

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  Review by Roy Shtayim ★ 18

  Rather than watching this piece of garbage, watch one of these great WWII films instead: 
  The Pianist
  Inglourious Basterds
  Fury
  Son of Saul
  Come and See