Rating: 
Summary: You have to see this to believe it
Review: I watched this movie in my German Film class and I loved it. It truly an unbelievable story. I would say that as incredible and unrealistic it looks, it is probable. Its supposed to be true story. If you look at incredible stories of World War II, (like German soldiers taking speed to keep them awake during Blitzkrieg) I would definetely believe it. Anyway the movie is about a young jewish boy, who flees Poland when the Germans invade. He is made to join a Communist led orphanage where he is indoctrinated with Communist ideas. Then, he is again abandoned, and falls into German hands. His impeccable German allows him to join their army as a russian translator. They believe his story that he is an Aryan. He is then sent to a Hitler Youth school where he struggles to prevent others from seeing the obvious sign that he is a jew. (if you know what i mean) There is male nudity in the film which I found quite unecessary and it might offend people. However, otherwise, you should definetely look into this movie. Its AWESOME!!
Rating: 
Summary: Awsome acting/story but sucky end...
Review: I've never paid any attention to the holocaust until this movie... god these germans were mad people, I just can not believe these things actually happened like only 60 years ago on this planet! I prolly had not cried like in 10 years until I saw the scene when this kid confessed to his girlfriend's mother... what a bunch miserable people actually allowed this to happen... see like today I can vote bush out if I think he's dangerous... well if germans couldn't vote then at least they could assasinate hitler, I'm not trying to promote violence, but if one man could make millions to suffer like that... I still feel like vomitting... well what a shocking story... all good actors in this movie... this sucky director ruined whole movie by having an ending like that... it's like watching a schwarzenegger movie... you know things like that don't happen in real life... duh...
Rating:
Summary: Read the book before watching this movie.
Review: I've watched Europa Europa countless times since I first saw it. It's a totally amazing movie that everybody should see. The acting by all is very good. The only thing I would recommend though is that the book be read first. I saw the movie first, and later after having read the book, I noticed that some things were left out of the movie. There are also some parts of the movie that aren't accurate to the true story written by Solomon Perel in his book. I would probably give this movie five stars if it would've been more faithful to the book. This is a recommended film, just read the book first for the complete accurate story of what happened.
Rating:
Summary: Europa Europa
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Great film ,Even you are not Jewish!
Review: It is a film about human nature,politics,race,war,....everything Great movie
Rating: 
Summary: okay.
Review: its staging of how communism and nazism tried to mold the minds of youths is interesting from an historical angle. but, the central character in the film is so uninteresting, shallow, and inexpressive, with a huey the duck face, that i didn't enjoy being in his company.
however, the movie does pose an interesting moral question. was that kid perhaps the ultimate villain? after all, he betrays all sides just to survive, playing at being communist, nazi, jew, aryan, etc, and then running to save his skin whenever the tide changes. but would we have been any different? perhaps, perhaps not. he strikes us as a both a resourceful survivor and a total weasel.
Rating:
Summary: Living in Fear
Review: Marco Hoffschneider plays young Solomon, who in order to avoid being sent into the ghettos of WWII Germany, hides his true Jewish identity. Solly gets into all sorts of close call situations, but I must state that if it seems a bit unbelievable, you should know that the film is based on the autobiography of Solomon Perel. Rich in textures and colors, the film offers an objective view at the other side of Germans, through the eyes of one Jewish boy.
Rating:
Summary: Warning - Not Much Of This Movie Is True
Review: Mr. Perel's story - that is to say, his autobiography - is interesting and compelling. Regretably, this movie has taken literary license to an unfortunate extreme. "Leni," his girlfriend of sorts at the Hitler Youth School, was never pregnant in real life. At the end of the war, he was actually captured by the Americans in his sleep rather than the dramatic capture by the Russians depicted in the movie. He never captured a Russian position as depicted in the movie or otherwise. And, the homosexual German soldier depicted in the movie didn't merely make a casual pass at Perel - he actually tried to rape Perel on a number of occassions, once by trying to knock him out with chloroform (And yet in the end he did keep Perel's secret and they did become friends, as depicted in the movie). Not only was the movie full of drama that never happened, it also cut out significant events which did occur in real life - for example, Perel confronted his classmates and teachers at the end of the war. A very good movie, yes, but it irks me a great deal that so many "facts" were concocted out of thin air, at the expense of many true compelling events. I therefore do not recommend this movie, and instead recommmend Perel's book, and also the book "Hiding in Plain Sight" by Betty Lauer, which was published in March 2004.
Rating:
Summary: Europa Europa: The Fallacy of Assimilation
Review: One day in 1939, a Jewish boy's life is turned upside down. His home, his family, his very existence is shattered when the German armies pour into a wide-open Poland. In EUROPA EUROPA, director Agniewska Holland shows what happens when a state of youthful male innocence collides with the reality of the Nazi whirlwind. The audience sees the war through the eyes of Solomon Perel, a multi-lingual sixteen year old Jewish boy living in Germany. Marco Hofschneider, who plays Sollie, presents us with the Jewish everyman, one who wishes no more than to be left alone to live his life in peace. Too young to fight, he is not too young to run. And this is what he and his brother do. They both leave their home village to seek safety in Poland. They are separated, not to be reconciled until the end of the film, in 1945 in Berlin. Sollie winds up in a Russian orphanage, where his linguistic abilities allow him to blend in with the other Russian orphans. It is precisely here that Director Holland pokes a subtle thrust at one of the most controversial methods of Jewish survival during times of anti-semitic pogroms. Historically, whenever Jews were faced with killing, their choices were limited to one of two: die without fighting back (as did most Jews who wound up in the death camps) or blend in as best they could while denying their essential Jewish identities. Sollie, with his youthful good looks and fluency in Russian and German, chose the latter. From the first moments of his flight from Germany, Sollie had to play the ethnic will-o-the-wisp. What language he spoke, what uniform he wore, what leader he praised, all were a function of who was aiming a gun at his head. Sollie was better at playing the chameleon than most. In fact, he played the German so well that he was chosen by his Nazi superiors to enroll in the Hitler Jugend, a group that taught him the real meaning of psychological self-debasement. Throughout the war, Sollie had to change sides several times, each time etching in his soul the increasing need to find some spot of fixed dogma. In one superbly understated scene, Sollie, wearing the uniform of a junior SS cadet, stares morosely through a wind-chilled window and draws with his finger the Jewish star of David, almost as if to remind himself of who he in beneath the gleaming and shiny black leather uniform. By the end of the film, he has come full circle. Sollie is captured by the Russians in Berlin, who promptly disbelieve his claims that he was forced to leave the sanctity of the Russian orphanage to join the Waffen-SS. Surprisingly enough, he finds his long lost brother in the ruins of a smoking Berlin, and both survive the war to live in Israel.
This film shows the result of how a defenseless people are forced to use assimilation as their only technique for survival. In Solomon Perel, Agniewshka Holland shows both sides of this coin of survival. To assimilate, one must play the ethnic and religious chameleon to perfection, but in doing so, one must never forget that this is only an act, and that etching one's symbol of life on a cloudy window may be the only way to do that.
Rating:
Summary: A Nazi Jew? It's True!
Review: One of the best movies I ever saw and have practically learnt by heart, Russian, German et al! The movie tells of the incredible yet TRUE story of a Jewish boy during WW2 who saves himself by fitting in with the Communists by speaking Russian and with the Nazis by speaking German. But its not only knowing how to speak the language - its knowing how to adapt to their way of seeing the world. The movie is so credible because we can understand through his eyes how easy it is to be swept away by peer pressure and by group thought- even if the ideals are evil. We also get a fascinating glimpse into what the Nazi schools were like teaching their "genetics" classes, as well as falling in love with a young beautiful Nazi girl which of course can never be consummated for a few reasons- but I don't want to give too much away. I had to remind myself while watching this that it is TRUE! A must see! I can watch it another hundred times.
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