Europa

Von Trier once explained how he created such strong involvement from the viewer with his movies by placing his movie world in about the middle of the real world and the imagined world. So as viewers we think we watch a "true" story while in fact we are thoroughly manipulated, often to the point that the movie works disturbing (Dancer in the Dark) or painful (The Idiots/ Idioterne). Of course the Dogme-films acted only as a vehicle for this theory (besides creating some welcome spotlight on Von Trier).

The story is typical for Von Trier: our hero is idealistic, seems to balance his relations with everybody else, but soon becomes the victim of the problems others have created in the past for themselves. The idealist inevitably has to reject society in order to stay idealistic and becomes the terrorist. Mankind is spoiled and purity only leads to (self-)destruction. (These elements were also very omnipresent in Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark.) The movie is also full of cynical (even humorous) undertones about the role of the Germans and Americans in post-war Germany.

As a technical achievement the movie is wonderfully designed: shifting and fading washed-out colors, screen overlays, action on different overlays (with the shooting of the soon-to-be mayor as the most interesting). In this movie we can see how good Von Trier's handles film as a technical medium. In his later works he seems to step down from this (as if he is not longer interested in technical achievements because they become so easily available).

Zentropa has much in common with The Third Man, another noir-like film set among the rubble of postwar Europe. Like TTM, there is much inventive camera work. There is an innocent American who gets emotionally involved with a woman he doesn't really understand, and whose naivety is all the more striking in contrast with the natives.

But I'd have to say that The Third Man has a more well-crafted storyline. Zentropa is a bit disjointed in this respect. Perhaps this is intentional: it is presented as a dream/nightmare, and making it too coherent would spoil the effect.

This movie is unrelentingly grim--"noir" in more than one sense; one never sees the sun shine. Grim, but intriguing, and frightening.

Zentropa is another von Trier film that manages to tell an authentically interesting story, revel in its own aesthetic beauty, and engage us in questions of metaphysics. The films narration, as described above, sets the gauntlet very high. The often tired flashback/hypnotism/relapse/etc structure poses a certain disaster to most of the films that dare to use it. However, it is pulled off masterfully.

With Zentropa, we must first buy into the introduction. We prepare ourselves to relive these moments, and allow the film to justify its use of this down the tracks. However, we learn very quickly that what we have been sold is not the standard omniscient perspective. It is distorted and fragmented; emotion has been poured on too thick at parts, while in others it is spread too thin. We must accept the story directly from a mind that we considerably mistrust.

The rest of the film tirelessly reconstructs the scenes of this deranged mind. We transition from b&w film, to color. From a nearly mystical hope, to an absurd pessimism. Time moves too slowly, but abruptly jumps ahead too quickly. von Trier understands the architecture of this 'hypnotic' state supremely.

The movie progresses sporadically which is mandatory given the structure. von Trier plays wonderfully with the noir genre, he throws in some espionage, some sex, love, hats and guns. Finally, he skillfully introduces issues of morality, war, and responsibility- adding a rich political dimension to an already layered film.

The final scenes are visually the most beautiful in the movie, and some of my all time personal favorites. The quiet, tenseless moments in this sequence finally allow us to sink into a comfortable pace and an agreeable aesthetic.

Ultimately, von Trier has framed this film around a giant question of reality. As is his standard. The fact that this metaphysical dimension continually impinges upon the film, justifies its validity. The question was artfully asked. And beneath this works a noir film, a veritable feast of imagery, and wonderful performances.

That was the first thing that sprang to mind as I watched the closing credits to Europa make there was across the screen, never in my entire life have I seen a film of such technical genius, the visuals of Europa are so impressive that any film I watch in it's wake will only pale in comparison, forget your Michael Bay, Ridley Scott slick Hollywood cinematography, Europa has more ethereal beauty than anything those two could conjure up in a million years. Now I'd be the first to hail Lars von Trier a genius just off the back of his films Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark, but this is stupid, the fact that Europa has gone un-noticed by film experts for so long is a crime against cinema, whilst overrated rubbish like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Life is Beautiful clean up at the academy awards (but what do the know) Europa has been hidden away, absent form video stores and (until recently) any British TV channels.

The visuals in Europa are not MTV gloss; it's not a case of style over substance, its more a case of substance dictating style. Much like his first film The Element of Crime, von Trier uses the perspective of the main character to draw us into his world, and much like Element, the film begins with the main character (or in the case of Europa, we the audience) being hypnotized. As we move down the tracks, the voice of the Narrator (Max von Sydow) counts us down into a deep sleep, until we awake in Europa. This allows von Trier and his three cinematographers to pay with the conventions of time and imagery, there are many scenes in Europa when a character in the background, who is in black and white, will interact with a person in the foreground who will be colour, von Trier is trying to show us how much precedence the coloured item or person has over the plot, for instance, it's no surprise that the first shot of Leopold Kessler (Jean-marc Barr) is in colour, since he is the only character who's actions have superiority over the film.

The performances are good, they may not be on par with performances in later von Trier films, but that's just because the images are sometimes so distracting that you don't really pick up on them the first time round. But I would like to point out the fantastic performance of Jean-Marc Barr in the lead role, whose blind idealism is slowly warn down by the two opposing sides, until he erupts in the films final act. Again, muck like The Element of Crime, the film ends with our hero unable to wake up from his nightmare state, left in this terrible place, with only the continuing narration of von Sydow to seal his fate. Europa is a tremendous film, and I cant help thinking what a shame that von Trier has abandoned this way of filming, since he was clearly one of the most talented visual directors working at that time, Europa, much like the rest of his cinematic cannon is filled with a wealth of iconic scenes. His dedication to composition and mise-en-scene is unrivalled, not to mention his use of sound and production design. But since his no-frills melodramas turned out to be Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark then who can argue, but it does seems like a waste of an imaginative talent. 10/10

Storyline: Max von Sydow's voice-over narration hypnotizes the protagonist (and audience) back to 1945 where our protagonist the young American ideologist Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr) has just arrived in post-WWII 1945 Germany to help rebuilding the damaged country. Uncle Kessler (Ernst-Hugo Järegård) supplies Leopold with a job in the big Zentropa train corporation, but soon Leopold falls in love with Katharina Hartmann (Barbara Sukowa); daughter of Zentropa owner Max Hartmann (Jørgen Reenberg). Leopold soon finds himself caught in a web of corruption, being taken advantage of, losing his ideology, and is forced to chose between pest or colera.

Mysterious, mesmerizing, manipulative, noirish, haunting, beautiful, and ugly. These are some immediate, grandiose, descriptions that come to mind when thinking of Lars von Trier's 1991 masterpiece EUROPA; the final chapter of the Europa trilogy. In USA it was retitled ZENTROPA so audiences wouldn't confuse it with Agnieszka Holland's EUROPA EUROPA from 1990 (equally a WWII drama). The Europa trilogy also consists of FORBRYDELSENS ELEMENT from 1984 and EPIDEMIC from 1987 (the infamous experiment that only sold 900 tickets in the Danish cinemas). The trilogy thematically deals with hypnotism and loss of idealism, although the themes of this trilogy are not as essential as the visuals. In the opening-shot of EUROPA we see a locomotive moving towards us while our unidentified narrator literally hypnotizes us: "On the mental count of ten, you will be in Europa. Be there at ten. I say: ten". A metaphor for movies' ability to transport us into a subconscious dream-reality.

EUROPA utilizes a strange but extremely effective visual style -- that famous Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky is Trier's main-influence says it all. It's a black-and-white movie occasionally intertwined with red in form of blood, a red dress etc. According to rumors this inspired Steven Spielberg to use the similar effect in SHINDLER'S LIST from 1993 (coincidentially another WWII drama). Furthermore Trier uses so-called Dutch angels and reinvents background-projection by adding separately shot co-operating layers upon layers, but unlike old Hollywood movies that incorporated it for economical reasons, Trier uses it for artistic reasons. These carefully executed strange-looking visual techniques underline that we are in a dream-reality, we are hypnotized; the universe of EUROPA is not real! EUROPA is often criticized for weighing advanced technique (such as multi-layered background-projection) above plot and characters, but hey that's what reviewers criticized Stanley Kubrick's 1968 visual masterpiece 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY for -- nowadays it holds an obligatory place in all cinema-history books.

EUROPA also gets accused of historical incorrectness. Apparently Trier assigns the Nazis' Werewolf terrorist-group too much historical significance. According to various online-sources that's correct (a fascinating subject - try Googl'ing it yourself!), yet Trier's purposes are neither educational nor portraying history accurately. EUROPA is a never-ending nightmare. Leopold Kessler is hypnotized, therefore the universe that the audience encounters is a distorted reality. Equally it shows how our memory deceives us -- a 100% accurate reconstruction is a lie! Although young audiences who experience EUROPA are too young to have memories from WWII, we have a collective memory of it from various BBC documentaries, so these small inaccuracies actually serve a purpose: they inform us us that we are not in post-WWII Germany 1945, but in Leopolds memory of it.

All three Europa trilogy chapters portray young ideologists with noble intentions forced into corruption and losing their ideological innocence. The ambiguous endings of FORBRYDELSENS ELEMENT and EUROPA show the ideologists getting forever caught in their hypnotized realities. Before, during and after shooting EUROPA in 1990 in Poland, Lars von Trier and co-writer Niels Vørsel were extremely interested in WWII. It shows. It's packed with extremely beautiful shots catching the atmosphere of the time-period spot-on. A great example is the old Polish church (EUROPA was shot in Poland primarily for economic reasons) in the last act of EUROPA. As with 2001: SPACE ODYSSEY I think EUROPA will receive it's rightfully deserved place in cinema-history. Its method of twisting old film-noir love-affair clichés and visual techniques is so unique, strange and completely different from anything you will see from Hollywood nowadays, or any other dream-factory for that matter.

EUROPA is an essential movie in the Lars von Trier catalog. Some write it off as pure commercial speculation, but that would be catastrophic. It's right up there with other Trier classics and semi-classics such as FORBRYDELSENS ELEMENT from 1984, the TV-series RIGET from 1993 and DOGVILLE from 2003. It's a unique experience from before Trier cared for his actors, and before the Dogme95 Manifesto. Watch it! "On the count of ten..." 9/10