the audience applauded

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

I think I'm with a number of other reviewers here in doubting the veracity of this supposedly true story.All the way through it, I found myself thinking "that could happen - yeah right!!" and I was frankly extremely surprised at the end to discover that this movie is supposedly based on Solomon Perel's real life adventures during WWII. And I say adventures I think advisedly because of the actual unlikelihood that what is portrayed on screen had much at all to do with the reality of his situation at that time.I wanted to like "Europa Europa" as much as I liked "Olivier Olivier" and "The Secret Garden The Secret Garden" and more recently "In Darkness In Darkness" but I'm afraid that the improbably of the many situations portrayed here just detracted greatly from the experience for me.It also needs to be said I think that the apparently small budget spent on production of this movie (small compared to Hollywood admittedly) showed at times with sometimes less than convincing battle scenes in particular.It's not a bad movie by any means; just disappointing. In closing this review, I will say that I watched the DVD for the first time just last night, noticing as I opened the cellophane wrapper that I have had it in my collection for a very very long time, probably 20 years. Regrettably, for the DVD at least, it's not a movie I'll be watching again any time soon.JMV

The film starts off with two boys underwater. Solomon is about to turn 13 years old and celebrate his bar mitzvah, but Kristallnacht happens. His sister is killed while his family's home and store is vandalized. The rest of the family decides to flee to the father's native Poland. Here they are safe until war breaks out. Solomon and his brother are sent east by their father to flee. Here they are separated, but Solomon ends up in a Russian orphanage. Things go relatively well for Solomon who receives education in the orphanage and joins the Komsomol. When Hitler breaks his pact and invades the USSR, Solomon flees once again, this time with the rest of the orphanage. As he and the orphanage escape he is separated and captured by the Germans. Here he uses his knowledge of Russian, Polish and German to impersonate a Volksdeutscher. Through a stroke of a luck and the protection of another German soldier, he's able to remain safe and learn how to be a soldier in the German army. In a a battle his comrades are killed and, while deserting. it is assumed he is revealing a hidden Russian position. This leads him a captain to adopt him and send him west where he will enroll in an elite Hitler Youth School. Here he mostly deals with being a normal teenager and hiding his identity and circumcision. When he is about to be discovered, the Russians destroy the office where he is to verify his German purity. When the Russians finally advance, he deserts and, with the help of his surviving brother Isaak, is able to give up his hoax and rejoin his Jewish brethren. The film does a good job of showing dreams to help get into the psyche of Solomon, while the whole films feels like a real Greek drama like the Odyssey. Solomon is always off to some new place coming through mainly by luck. I especially like the reference that Hitler was himself a Jew in hiding. This helps bring the analogy that it may be better to die for one's belief, than live and hide them. Certainly it is a debate better conduced by Holocaust survivors than myself, but respecting the fact that the stories of Jews, Poles, Russians and even Germans were all different. It even posits, as Solomon's linguistic skills in battle, that perhaps a Jew is more German than some of the Volksdeutsch who were merely German by blood and not the merit that helped to actually save lives.I was completely mesmerized by all the characters. Each one enabled me to really feel and I go into it. I'd like to move away from WW2 in German cinema, but films of this caliber are hard to ignore.

This international co-production (Germany, France, Poland) unfolds a real story of Solomon Perel, a German Jewish boy whose most teen and youth years remained under the oppression of both Nazis and Soviets, mostly during World War II (1938-1944). Being a Jew was "non-welcome" in both dictatorships, under Nazi rule, however, it was oppressed and punished directly, thus Solomon had to become Jozef and became an elite "Aryan" German to almost all around him. Thanks to enormous luck, knowledge of languages and desire for survival, he managed to stay alive in different places and rules (by the way, he is still alive, although was born in 1925!).All this is aptly depicted, and despite the tragic background, there are several absurd, hearty and even comic moments in his unwanted journey between Berlin, Lodz and Grodno, reflecting the fast changes of that period (no wonder that the film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for the Academy Award: Best Writing Adapted Screenplay). The cast is even and plausible as well, particularly Marco Hofschneider as Solomon/Jozef who is always visible. Perel appears briefly as himself in the finale.A good and versatile film (there are not too many dealing with events both in the Soviet and Nazi regimes), but the non-original title referring to Europe is confusing, providing a distorted and/or uninviting picture about the real nature of the film.

Europa Europa is an exciting story about a young German Jew (Solly), and his efforts to survive the Nazi Regime and the second World War. Solly's family escapes Nazi Germany and resettles in Poland. However Germany invades Poland, and Solly is separated from his family and ends up living in a soviet orphanage. Along this journey Solly learns Polish and Russian on top of his German, and his ability to speak multiple languages helps him throughout the movie. After the Germans invade the Soviet Union Solly is captured by the Germans. He convinces the Germans that he is a ethnic German, and due to his language abilities is assigned to a German Army unit as a translator. He eventually ends up in the Hitler Youth where he struggles to hide his Jewish origins from his commanders, peers, and a German Girl he falls in love with. It's and incredible true story that shows how great the will to survive can be, and is a good example of will power. One negative of the film is that is portrays the soviets and good guys, despite the fact that they were also guilty of war crimes and atrocities.