I see films from the perspective of a screenwriter and writing teacher. This is a brilliant script for many reasons, not the least of which was the epic story of war inherent in the designing principle. More specifically, this was the epic story of war from the perspective of the Hero, a Jewish 14- year-old teenager caught up in WWII, a Jew living in Germany. The Hero's story of survival in a world gone mad with the backdrop of the Holocaust is but one of the themes running through this story line. We also get to see the horrors of the war through the eyes of the Germans, the Nazis, the Hitler youth, the Russians, the Poles, the German Jews, the Polish Jews, German army foot soldiers, German society through the eyes of the mother whose daughter gets pregnant to donate the baby to the Fuhrer and make their family roots more Aryan...To pull off the Character Web so brilliantly, the script goes beneath the "skin" of all the players. Each character has a weakness/need and moral choices to make that deal with the central problem of WWII and ideologies that they had to "buy into" in order to survive. The use of subtext in the dialogue, whereby the character never really says what he means leads to an avoidance of conflict, but then an implosion of conflict as the plot moves forward.The Story World was one of the most authentic ever put on the screen: Land, tools, technology, man-made buildings, structures either showing extreme poverty, or suffering, or extreme power, as with the Third Reich symbols and the institutionalization of the human psyche; the dumbing down while ostensibly seeming to educate - The Lodz ghetto, with the dying Jewish populace amidst a Nazi bureaucracy; train protocol; trolly protocol; army protocol, etc., all displayed with an accuracy down to the tableware and the machinery; the clothing; the murders in plain sight.All of the structural beats were spot on: The Inciting Incident; the 12 sequences; the mid-point, all leading to the Climax/Battle scene in Sequence 11, right on the mark. In case you missed it, the opening scene is a "Brit Mila," the Jewish ritual circumcision that every male child is to have, according to the Torah and Avraham's covenant with the Jewish people. The Hero has to then hide his Jewishness/circumcised dead give-away self throughout the story. The last scene goes straight back to the first scene and deals with the theme of the covenant of circumcision leading to freedom and redemption. I'm avoiding "spoilers" for anyone who has not seen this film, but the story line self-revelation moment, both to the Hero and the audience is epic and powerful. For those who missed the "authenticity" of detail of this story, as if to say that the story line has to be a documentary of the Holocaust - This is the dilemma of writing a script that is 120 pages/minutes long as opposed to telling the story in novel format of 350 - 400 pages. What is crucial in screen writing is Narrative Drive done visually, with no dialogue in scene writing. And there are strict structural sequencing rules that have to be adhered to. This film captures all of the necessary elements to great film making, both structurally and thematically.

Europa Europa AKA Hitlerjunge Salomon, i.e. "Hitler Youth Salomon" is a very interesting movie. The film should not be confused with the 1991 Lars von Trier film Europa, which was initially released as Zentropa in the United States to avoid such a confusion. If you do find yourself as a viewer, be glad that you don't live in a world like this, anymore. Directed by Agnieszka Holland, the movie is loosely based on the 1989 autobiography of Solomon Perel. He's play in the film by Marco Hofschneider. Solomon Perel is a German Jewish boy who is trying to escape the Holocaust by masquerading not only as a non-Jew, but as an elite "Aryan" German in Nazi Germany's Poland and a 'communist' student in Soviet Union's Poland. Without spoiling too much, there is a lot of disturbing things in this film that might make this movie hard to watch. This film does indeed take massive liberties on this remarkable man's life and who probably is a man of great integrity. I didn't like how much Solomon in the film has such negative characteristic throughout the film. Unfortunately this film bio-pic loses its own integrity by using far too much artistic license. The symbolism in this movie are really interesting. The title, Europa, Europa stands for the duo of Europe's political beliefs at the time and trying to fit in. Olivier, Olivier, Holland's next film deals with a similar plot. For the most part in this film, Solomon's circumcised penis functions as the film's chief dramatic device in which the plot is driven. Since he was circumcised at a young age, Solomon is going through a degrees of anxiety that is common with young men: feeling of loss of control over one's life. It is the one thing he can't change about himself. No matter how hard he tries to change his identity, his circumcision is the one thing that can expose "Jupp" as a Jew. For example, a romance with a German girl, Leni (Julie Delpy), who wants to conceive a child for the Fuhrer, proves dismal; because he can't consummate the relationship due to that fact. You see him, break down due to this. This adaptability is conveyed effectively by Marco Hofschneider in a strong example of a great performance from him. Still, I felt the true psychological depths of the character were nearly unexplored. Nudity plays a big part of this movie as he always cannot let anyone see him bathing. You would think, you wouldn't see nude as much due to this reason, but the movie has way too many nude scenes with him. While, the graphic nudity didn't hurt the movie, too much. It was indeed, distracting, as there were tons of scenes that he didn't need to nude in. None of them were use as sex appeal, but one scene was bit disturbing. Due warning, Solek has a scene where string and rubber bands in various painful ways to simulate a foreskin. It's really hard to watch. The violence was also bit graphic, but it really show you, how brutal, it was to live at that time. Add to it, was the graphic stock footage of the war. The stock footage was bit overused in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, there were some lighter side of this mostly gloomy movie. Much of the humor in the film, come with the fact that the Nazis officers have no clue that he is a Jew. It becomes really funny, when one of them quote that 'Jupp' looks like a young Adolf Hitler. Another funny moment is when a Nazi "expert" in "racial science' came to the school to teach how to detect Jews and use 'Jup' as a demonstration on how pure Aryan stock, he was. After all, where else would you see a feuding Joseph Stalin and a Jewish Hitler dancing together? I do find the movie use Deus ex machine plot line way too much in this film. The movies has a lot of great scenes. The whole painted-over windows of trolley crossing the off-limits Lodz Ghetto was just so surreal. I wish the movie focus a little more on life in Soviet Union, how hard was it for Solomon to lecture young Communists about the non-existence of God, when he was practicing Jew. The movie moves in a really too quick pace. The music adds to the dramatic tension, but is somewhat forgotten. Since the film was made from Europeans. It's hard to find a movie copy has English subtitles. While, the movie is now in DVD, you wouldn't find a lot of English dubbing version. In my opinion, it's better off to find the English subtitles, because you would miss the fact that the actor that plays Solomon speaks both great Russian, English and German in this. Overall: Europa, Europa is a gripping tale of one man survivable during World War 2 and the Holocaust. It might seek a bit lacking verisimilitude at times, but it's still watchable.

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.

And Shoah, limits, courage and fear. A travel without end. A fight and a testimony. Sparkls of love and pieces of a world. And the life as essential gift. It is story of a Jew. And lesson about small things who must be the essence. But the view is more large. Like a book with illustrations - bones of words. The reality of young Salomon is present in any age. The masks and the shadows, the good people and the territories in same color. So, more than a description of a miracle with many faces, the film is praise of sense, in gloomy time, of every day. It is not The Pianist or Schindler List. Only exercise of feelings and searches, of terror and hope, it is way of a silhouette to his real identity.