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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

This is one of the great war epics I've ever seen. It's one of the few movies to show WWII in a respectable, nonromantic, or exploitative way. We follow the real story of Solomon Perel who as a Jewish teenager during WWII pretended to be German and lived as a Nazi during the war.

The plot seems completely outlandish at points, both because of the number of coincidences and because of some incredible moments like Solomon meeting Stalin's son by chance. At points, I started to think that it was too much, but then I listened to the commentary track with the director, Agnieszka Holland. She's a joy to listen to and points out that basically everything shown did happen…