Europa Europa

A movie that proves that fact is far more bizarre than fiction. Based on the autobiography of Solomon Perel, “Europa Europa” follows the extraordinary adventures of a Jewish boy becomes one of the prize pupils in the Hitler Youth. Young Solomon’s attempts to evade the Nazi slaughter of the Jews is a tragi-comedy of epic porportions. While the war escalates in horror and intensity, Solomon relies on his good looks and sharp wits to survive. From Communist training camp to the elite Nazi school in Berlin, Solomon’s journey takes him across Germany, Poland and Eastern Europe. “Europa Europa” is such an exhilerating movie to watch - fast, colourful, exciting - it is only on reflection that the full resonance of Solomon’s story has its effect. His chameleon changes of self in order to survive undermine both radical and humanist notions of the “hero” and the film asks unsettling and difficult questions about complicity and collaboration in violence. This film is alive: one moment we are laughing out loud at Solomon’s attempts to hide his penis from view (and its telling lack of foreskin) and in the next moment we confront the stark inhuman obscenity of the Warsaw Ghetto. A rivetting, important, complex film.