The Women Directors Hall of Fame

One thing here is i'm lucky i went into this knowing it's apparently a true story, otherwise i would have been annoyed by a fair amount of this. I still don't know how much of it is true but it at least made me think of it as something crazy that actually happened rather than an incredibly contrived story. There was so many coincidences and right place at the right time moments, but apparently they actually happened. Some parts didn't work that well for me like the majority of the Nazi School part due to this, Jupp being picked for the examination and the various other "he might be caught" moments were just frustrating at that point as absolutely everything in the film had happened to him by then and there was zero tension in it, but i was fine with most of it. I'm still definitely skeptical both of this as an accurate adaptation of his book and of the truth of Perel's claims, and the ending with "your story won't be believed" genuinely pissed me off, but it was nuts and entertaining anyway and by the time that was said i had already enjoyed a lot of the film.

This didn't get to me emotionally like a lot of holocaust films, but maybe that wasn't a bad thing since there's a million other holocaust films that set out to depress you. Seemed this was quickly paced so it didn't dwell on a lot of the sad and disturbing things; not sure if it was intentional or not but i liked that in the sense that people then rarely could dwell on that sort of stuff in the middle of a war where more hardships are likely to come, particularly jews living in Germany like shown here. The Nazi's attack their house while he's in a bath and he quickly runs out and jumps in a barrel next time we see him any of the unpleasantness the Nazi's bestowed has passed, same thing with his sisters death; we don't see it she's just dead then we quickly move on. Another reason for this was the films tone, humour and the main character who seemed barely affected by any of this. This was certainly a unique perspective on this time period and these events. One thing i like about that is this is apparently a first hand account of these events and people like me who have no connection to it try to pigeonhole it into what we imagine it was like when there obviously wasn't one commonly held experience of these times. I mean he says stuff like "When war broke out i was glad because the police would forget about the bicycle incident and father wouldn't get mad" . It's also an interesting tale of survival. Something you see a lot in war stories is people not giving up their faith or staying loyal to their country or whatever, that's definitely noble and admirable but you'd think no one in the 40's thought of self-preservation. Well our main character certainly does and it was refreshing to watch and brought up some interesting questions.

Alot of this reminded me of the young part of Once Upon a Time in America and he kind of reminded me of Noodles for some reason. I'm not sure if it was just film about Jews made around the same time or something, just wanted to throw that out there. Maybe it was both dealing with tough situations and them barely reacting to it just going on and acting like normal kids, Noodles situation obviously wasn't as bad but he was growing up poor in a crime ridden ghetto. The other film it reminded me of was Forrest Gump, that's basically what this was before Forrest Gump was made haha. He's even somehow there for Stalin's son's capture, not just that he plays a central role The interesting thing about this is comparison was he wasn't some unaware person due to his mental capabilities like Gump, he had to consciously navigate these crazy situations to survive while coming of age in the process. Not to mention us seeing the villains of history as allies, mentors and friends of him, just living as they normally do; was a weird insight into their side. For example when i mentioned tragedies or death or whatever not being dwelled on earlier, the one that's dwelled on most and probably get the biggest reaction from him is his Nazi friends death; definitely didn't expect to see a jew genuinely broken up about a nazi's death.

Now the narration, that was weird. There's a part when he's on a boat while he's narrating then he's thrown into the water and he stops narrating and takes a deep breath, as if he was narrating it in present time. That can't be possible as he talks in past tense constantly and with hindsight, not sure if the writers thought that'd be cute or what but it was mostly baffling to me and took me right out of the movie. Have some other general complaints but that was something that genuinely annoyed me because i was into the tone when that happened, thankfully there was no more of that when it went on. His narration was hilarious at times in fact; it was usually just him clarifying what was going on but it was always ridiculous and insane. My favourite was when he was just told the Captain wants to adopt him, can't remember the exact words but the "staunch anti-semite" part cracked me up. Performance wise i overall think everyone did a good job. My biggest surprise was Julie Delpy. I saw her name on the poster then by the time she appeared i had forgot she was even in it, was weird seeing her so young she was good.

I had some problems with this but overall i liked it a good amount, mostly because it was very entertaining and despite the subject matter a very easy watch mostly due to its pacing and humour. Actually the thing i'd praise this film for more than anything was that the humour never felt inappropriate to me even though i think it should have. Good nom JJ. That's two noms now i had the wrong impression of going in. I thought this was going to be another straight depressing holocaust or just general WWII movie, and honestly i was kind of dreading it as i've seen tonnes of those so glad it turned out to be something different. Most importantly though i can now cross off my bucket list: watch Stalin and Hitler dance together