Europa Europa (1990) .

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#FBF so how about a #Flashback Movie? 😁

#EuropaEuropa (1990)

Stunning, challenging, unforgettable piece of cinema that truly earns its legendary reputation.

The great Holland takes an usual approach, making a gentle, by turns furious, funny, sad, emotional, surreal, episodic action-adventure film, but she never, ever, loses sight of the elemental horror at the root of it all. The film keeps you off balance the whole time with its expert shifts in tone, supporting characters, locations…heck, *every*thing that by the end you end up having gone through an all-time emotional wringer.

The direction is superb, as is the cinematography, music, production design. And the wonderful cast, the background characters that come and go, each having a hand in the main character's evolution as a human being, all leading up to that emotionally-shattering ending.

And the kid at the center of it all, Hofschneider, my goodness, what a way to make a debut! He's in every scene, almost every frame, and holds the whole thing together with his youthful charisma, and the emotional scarring he picks up along the way (the tram scenes…my goodness…devastating… the scene where he finally confesses it all, as TBH so helpfully pointed out, the burden of having to be someone else this whole time becomes too much to bear…).

As the great director herself says, she wanted to connect us to history through empathy, in order to confront us with a story we don't want to know.

Like I said, a stunning, challenging, unforgettable film.

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#AgnieszkaHolland #JacekPetrycki #ZbigniewPreisner #AllanStarski
#MarcoHofschneider #JulieDelpy #ReneHofschneider #HalinaLabonarska
@criterioncollection

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