Europa

Released as Zentropa in North America to avoid confusion with Agniezska Holland's own Holocaust film Europa Europa, this third theatrical feature by a filmmaker who never ceases to surprise, inspire or downright shock is a bizarre, nostalgic, elaborate film about a naive American in Germany shortly following the end of WWII. The American, named Leo, doesn't fully get what he's doing there. He has come to take part in fixing up the country since, in his mind, it's about time Germany was shown some charity. No matter how that sounds, he is not a Nazi sympathizer or so much as especially pro-German, merely mixed up. His uncle, who works on the railroad, gets Leo a job as a helmsman on a sleeping car, and he is increasingly enmeshed in a vortex of 1945 Germany's horrors and enigmas.

This progression starts when Leo, played rather memorably by the calm yet restless actor Jean-Marc Barr, meets a sultry heiress on the train played by Barbara Sukowa, an actress with gentility on the surface but internal vigor. She seduces him and then takes him home to meet her family, which owns the company which manufactures the trains. These were the precise trains that took Jews to their deaths during the war, but now they run a drab day-to-day timetable, and the woman's Uncle Kessler postures as another one of those good Germans who were just doing their jobs. There is also Udo Kier, the tremendous actor who blew me away in Von Trier's shocking second film Epidemic, though here he is mere scenery.

Another guest at the house is Eddie Constantine, an actor with a quiet strength, playing a somber American intelligence man. He can confirm that Uncle Kessler was a war criminal, though it is all completely baffling to Leo. Americans have been characterized as gullible rubes out of their element for decades, but little have they been more blithely unconcerned than Leo, who goes back to his job on what gradually looks like his own customized death train.

The story is told in a purposely uncoordinated manner by the film's Danish director, Lars Von Trier, whose anchor is in the film's breathtaking editing and cinematography. He shoots in black and white and color, he uses double-exposures, optical effects and trick photography, having actors interact with rear-projected footage, he places his characters inside a richly shaded visceral world so that they sometimes feel like insects, caught between glass for our more precise survey.

This Grand Jury Prize-winning surrealist work is allegorical, but maybe in a distinct tone for every viewer. I interpret it as a film about the last legs of Nazism, symbolized by the train, and the ethical accountability of Americans and others who appeared too late to salvage the martyrs of these trains and the camps where they distributed their condemned shiploads. During the time frame of the movie, and the Nazi state, and such significance to the train, are dead, but like decapitated chickens they persist in jolting through their reflexes.

The characters, music, dialogue, and plot are deliberately hammy and almost satirically procured from film noir conventions. The most entrancing points in the movie are the entirely cinematographic ones. Two trains halting back and forth, Barr on one and Sukowa on another. An underwater shot of proliferating blood. An uncommonly expressive sequence on what it must be like to drown. And most metaphysically affecting of all, an anesthetic shot of train tracks, as Max von Sydow's voice allures us to hark back to Europe with him, and abandon our personal restraint.

In 1995, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg created what is known as the 'Dogma 95 Manifesto'--a series of rules that these and other Danish avant-garde film makers would adhere to the in the future. I mention this because although "Europa" was made by von Trier, the film does not at all adhere to these rules--as the film was made four years before this film movement was deliberately created. Von Trier's use of black & white film (interposed throughout the film with muted color), sets, incidental music, non-hand held camera, the use of a crane for a few shots and setting the film in the past were all techniques he would eschew only four years later. I guess he was just getting it out of his system!

The beginning of "Europa" is very, very strange. You hear the voice of Max Von Sydow and he leads the audience in a hypnotic induction--taking you back to the year 1945--just after WWII. And, later, you will once again hear the voice of Von Sydow talking throughout the film like a hypnotherapist--a VERY unusual way to narrate this film.

The film plot revolves around an odd and rather non-emotive American, Leopold Kessler. It seems that he was a pacifist during the war and has moved to Germany to work for the railroad. This is odd, I know, but it gets a lot more unusual than that... I would try to explain the story, but frankly it all becomes very surreal and a bit weird. Additionally, while the film is supposed to be about a group of post-war terrorists named 'Werewolves', the film does NOT attempt to provide an actual history lesson or really discuss their actions. My advice is like all surreal films, don't try to understand it or make sense out of why von Trier made it--just absorb it and make of it what you will (or not).

My feeling about the film is that I liked it because of its bizarreness and innovative cinematography. Sure, there are a few sloppy portions (such as the dubbing of the Colonel's voice) but what's important is that this film was made in 1991. Using computers to make this sort of project would be pretty easy today--but back in 1991 personal computers were still a bit rare and amazingly underpowered. Yet, von Trier was able to use black & white mixed with occasional splashes of grainy color--a difficult trick in its day. There are also very very beautiful camera shots throughout the film (such as the bombed out church in the snow) which are achieved through superimposing characters into scenes he shot previously. Totally weird, confusing but visually arresting. This is NOT a film for the average person--they probably wouldn't have the patience or would demand a more coherent and traditional plot. But, it's the sort of thing that is worth seeing once--it's that unusual and unique. The style, the narration, the cinematography and the music provide a once in a lifetime sort of experience.

If you get the DVD, be sure to see if it has the French documentary "The Making of 'Europa'", as it explains the various very innovative camera tricks that were used. Additionally, just how complicated it all was to make is revealed...and it took two years to make!

Someone release this movie on DVD so it can take its hallowed place as one of the greatest films of all time in ten to twenty years when critics and film historians look back on the so-called films of the 1990's and see how vapid they were for the most part, and how Lars Von Trier tried to revolutionize and revitalize the international film world with this masterpiece. As it stands, "Zentropa" (or "Europa" as it is referred to outside the US) is one of the most fascinating and artistic views of the bleakness and almost psychotic uncertainty that oozed out of post WWII Europe, namely the decimated German landscape, whose physical horrors were matched only by the damage to the psyche of its people. Von Trier brilliantly paints his vision on screen. You will feel like you are watching some lost espionage noir classic from the late 1940's with the perfectly lighted black and white scenes, while at the same time feel you are on the brink of something beyond the cutting edge, especially in scenes like the assassination aboard the train. Literally, when you see this movie, you are witnessing the evolution of an art form.

For some reason, Von Trier got caught up in his own Dogma movement shortly after this. And while his "Breaking the Waves" and "Dancer in the Dark" are classics in their own right, it is with "Zentropa" that he truly lifted the art of film making to new and exciting heights. 10/10, ages like a fine wine, and begs for a DVD release.

***Postscript - Criterion released the film on DVD in 2009. Highly recommended.

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.

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.