Europa / Europa, Essay Example

1. Directors purpose of making the film

The Directors of the film were making a story of personal courage and survival during the period of the holocaust in WW2 Germany. This was told through the lens of a German Jewish boy who tried to hide his Jewish ethnicity by means of his fluent German language skills.  The film carefully weaved the art of deception within  the fanaticism of Nazi ideology and portrayed both the horrors and the fears of Jewish Europeans facing persecution and potential annulation.

2. True subject theme of film

The film was aimed at reflecting the holocaust in WW2 and the persecution of the European Jews by the German Nazis.  Although focused upon the plight of one individual and his family it aimed to show the horrors of the war and how individuals tried personal survival plans to prevent being killed or sent to concentration camps.  The film really illustrates the lengths an individual will take in order to ensure personal survival.  This includes deception, denial of ethnicity, race and family and participating in the Nazi ideology in order to avoid detection.  It portrays the true feelings of Jewish Europeans who became resigned to their fate.

3. Linking the elements of the film

The film blends a number of themes that work within the main theme of the holocaust.  This ranges from the depiction of anti-semetism, the fanatical response of the German Nazis in their persecution of the European Jews, the reaction of the Russians to the Germans etc.  A key theme is the depiction of ethnic cleansing and the creation of a pure Arian race which purges the German Jew from European society.  It is a sense of personal survival against the backdrop of genocide.  The point stresses the chameleonic characteristics of language and how this could be used as a cloak in which to disguise personal identity.