EUROPA EUROPA Movie Review

Hitlerjunge Salomon

I attended an early screening of Agnieszka Holland's Europa, Europa with the same skepticism and, yes, dread that I generally carry with me to new films about the Holocaust. It's not that I don't want to see new takes on the subject, but rather that movies have so rarely dealt with it effectively or honestly—for a host of reasons—that I often find such films more disappointing than eye-opening. This film, however, which is based on the remarkable, true-life, World War II odyssey of a teenager named Solomon Perel, is a quietly staggering piece of work. Perel's saga of survival would be laughed out of a Hollywood story conference if it were fiction. Escaping to Russia from Nazi-occupied Poland, the Jewish Perel survives by impersonating a German when the Nazis enter Russia. Having no choice but to continue his charade, Perel becomes a member of the Hitler Youth, where he's held up as an example of a model Aryan. When he becomes romantically involved with a German girl while impersonating everything he hates and fears, the delicate juggling act that Perel must perform to survive causes him to question the very nature of what we all comfortably consider our “identity.” Europa, Europa is on one level an exciting and profoundly moving adventure about the resilience, ingenuity, and courage of one human being; it is also a simple but brilliantly told lesson about the fascinating, often terrifying, and occasionally inspiring ways in which ordinary people adapt when the universe around them turns mad.

NEXT STOP … Olivier, Olivier, The Boat Is Full, Shoah

1991 (R) 115m/C GE Marco Hofschneider, Klaus Abramowsky, Michele Gleizer, Rene Hofschneider, Nathalie Schmidt, Delphine Forest, Julie Delpy; D: Agnieszka Holland; W: Agnieszka Holland; C: Jacek Petrycki, Jacek Zaleski; M: Zbigniew Preisner. Golden Globe Awards '92: Best Foreign Film; National Board of Review Awards '91: Best Foreign Film; New York Film Critics Awards '91: Best Foreign Film; Nominations: Academy Awards '91: Best Adapted Screenplay. VHS ORI, BTV