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(More customer reviews)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.
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This "incredible, true story" (Los Angeles Times) is at once "eye-opening, harrowing and humorous" (Leonard Maltin) as it recounts the severe actions a young boy must take in order to survive the Holocaust. Based on the autobiography of Solomon Perel, a young German Jew, the film "bounds from one jaw-dropping episode to the next" (The New Yorker) and puts you in the middle of war-torn Europe where ingenuity, timing and luck are the key to survival.Separated from his family at the age of thirteen, Solly (Marco Hofschneider) takes on various identities to hide his Jewishheritage. First passing himself off as an orphan and later as one of the "Hitler Youth," Solly carries on his charade, hoping desperately to keep his identity hidden and make it through the war alive.
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