Saturday 12 November 2016

Europa Europa (1990)

Europa Europa (1990)

Interesting WWII film (7*)

Producing a film about Nazi Germany is easy and difficult at the same time. It is easy because many viewers are well-informed about the dramatic period in Germany's history, making the viewers' emotional involvement not too difficult. You don't name your son Adolf.

It is difficult because clichés are so easy to produce. The classical black-white versions of evil Germans versus glorious Allied forces is an obvious trap.

None of this in this film. It follows loosely a true story of a Jewish youngster hiding as a member of the Hitlerjugend - the Nazi youth movement. On top of his puberty, he has to face an identity crisis due to his choices to survive.

Other interesting parts of the story are a homosexual German soldier, a girl overly committed to her country and a Polish boy fighting for his catholic religion in communist Poland.

The way a part of difficult history books is mixed into the movie deserves to be mentioned, as well as the music. Sometimes though, overacting takes the upper hand.

But the fact remains that showing the true horror of the atrocities committed during that period is not fit for film, even in this German co-production, as only very few would be able to watch it.

However, it's still a very interesting film to watch.

No comments:

Post a Comment