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.
Review of Europa Europa
