Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Beulah Bram A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Bene Cumb 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.

intelearts Europa Europa is the remarkable true story of Salomon Perel, a young teenage Polish Jew, who passed himself off as, not merely German, but also, as a member of the highest order of the Hitler Youth, while all the time sticking to his Judaic roots, in order to survive the war. The storytelling aspects of the film gives this it drive and purpose and are excellent - based on Perel's extraordinary autobiography it avoids extrapolation and sticks to his tale.It scores very high in two vital aspects - one, the script is superb, (It was Oscar nominated) and two it was shot in German which given it subject matter was no small achievement.The film is well directed, though because of it's use of studio lighting and bright colors it has not aged as well as some of the Holocaust corpus.There are perhaps better films and books that express the absolute evil of the death camps, Weisel and Levi being two prime examples in authorship, but this is a unique perspective as it is not centered on the Shoah but rather on the unique conundrum of daring to survive by living in the heart of the Nazis' twisted dream, and one definitely worth your time - it is a truly fascinating true story with some strong adventure and drama elements.

leonkramer I have to say I don't know the story of Sally Perel, but even after watching the movie I don't know much more than that he was in the Hitler Youth.This was my 2nd attempt to watch the movie. The first time I turned the movie off in the middle cause it was so unrealistic and boring. Now I forced myself to watch it again because I studied about the Hitler Youth hoping I can get some impressions of it. Pretty disappointed now.How did Sally Perel survive the Holocaust? I really don't know how it happened, but it certainly did not take place like in the movie. Someone decided to try to make the story more interesting with adding stories to the plot which are just ridiculous. Instead the producers should have spent effort to make this movie more authentic and alive and some good actors wouldn't hurt too. It was awful! The movie is so awfully flat that I did not feel anything for the main character. It advances very very quickly and it's incredible underdeveloped. I don't remember any scene in which there was any excitement at all. Everything just happens so fast and sticky situations are solved much too easily.I am convinced that the story of Sally Perel is interesting, but Hitlerjunge Salomon, unfortunately, did an ridiculous awful job telling it.I gotta tell, I have seen many WW2 movies, but this was by far the worst. How someone can produce a totally emotion free WW2 movie plus add absolute absurd side stories is beyond my imagination. Just watching this movie made me feel stupid.Some examples for the ridiculous story line: - Salomon, who just escaped from a Russian orphanage, and many others were captured by the SS. Some SS guys force some guy to pull down the pants to check if he has a circumcision. Then they start talking to Salomon who does not have a passport, but Salomon says that he is German and was forced to visit a communist orphanage. The SS guys are not sceptic at all, don't want to take a look at his penis (not that this would be expected usually, but after treating another guy so roughly just seconds before it sounds like utter bs), instead they are like bff from the first second. in the same scene Salomon tells the SS of some Russian soldier who is the son of Stalin. Wow, okay, Stalin had a son and he was captured, but why did they pack it here? That would be a massive coincidence if he truly got captured just next to Salomon. Besides that it's bullshit I find it also pretty hard to give Salomon such a negative characteristic. Sneaky, sneaky, jew! Salomon shoots at a big barn with a machine gun and what happens? The barn instantly bursts in flames. After like 3 seconds the whole roof is already burning. It's bad enough when cars explode all the time in action movies, but this is just ridiculous.Salomon tries to hide his circumcision and thus avoids getting naked at any price. Well, pretty illogical that he then later has sex with that convinced nazi woman in the train. Also the acting in this scene.. *facepalm* Gotta read the book .. this movie is just utter garbage.

turners-1 I belong to a small film group (12-20 of us) who watched this film last night. I think it is fair to say that most are 40+, liberal with a small 'l', and well educated. The general consensus was that the film was a missed opportunity to tell a fascinating story - Solomon Perel's life is a very interesting one, but ludicrous events have been added to the script which, at times, made the film laughable. To add to the problems of the script, the acting is wooden at best, Marco Hofschneider seems incapable of expressing emotion, and with one or two exceptions the rest of the cast are as bad. One of the group watching is a youngish German girl, who informed us that none of the actors involved in the film are in the first rank of German cinema, which with hindsight seems obvious. To me, the film appeared to have been made on the cheap, with too many short cuts and mistakes: for example, he fires a machine gun at a barn and it bursts into flames - that simply would not happen. And the events added - his brother saving his life at the end for example - are not just not credible, but are so obviously added to the script for effect that they invalidate the real incidents in the film. As for the Nazis, none appears menacing, indeed many appear to be buffoons (which doubtless many were, but not in a jokey way). The comparison with Sophie Scholl - the Final Days is not favourable to this film: that is a film where the fear felt by the protagonists is palpable: this almost seems to have been played for laughs.