The Criterion Collection

Europa Europa

Edition no. 985

Discuss Compare

Release Date: Tuesday, 09 July 2019
Country of Release: USA
MSRP: $29.95

Buy Physical Copy At:

Licensor Information

Les Films du Losange

Directed by: Agnieszka Holland

Featuring: Marco Hofschneider, Julie Delpy, René Hofschneider, Hanns Zischler, Andrzej Mastalerz, André Wilms, Ashley Wanninger, Klaus Abramowsky, Michèle Gleizer, Delphine Forest

As World War II splits Europe, sixteen-year-old German Jew Salomon (Marco Hofschneider) is separated from his family after fleeing with them to Poland, and finds himself reluctantly assuming various ideological identities in order to hide the deadly secret of his Jewishness. He is bounced from a Soviet orphanage, where he plays a dutiful Stalinist, to the Russian front, where he hides in plain sight as an interpreter for the German army, and back to his home country, where he takes on his most dangerous role: a member of the Hitler Youth. Based on the real-life experiences of Salomon Perel, Agnieszka Holland’s wartime tour de force Europa Europa is a breathless survival story told with the verve of a comic adventure, an ironic refutation of the Nazi idea of racial purity, and a complex portrait of a young man caught up in shifting historical calamities and struggling to stay alive.

Year: 1990
Time: 112 min.