Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
Since arriving to the international film scene with his 1984 debut feature The Element of Crime, Lars von Trier was already making a name for himself with stylish, strange films that challenged the conventions of traditional cinema. His 1987 follow-up Epidemic got some fine notices for its dreamy, stylish take on a man trying to make a movie while a year later, von Trier shot a TV-film version of Medea for Danish TV using analog cameras. Around that same time, von Trier began to work on a new script that would challenge the landscape of European cinema that would break him to the international forefront while capturing the attention of American cinema with Europa (re-named Zentropa to avoid confusion with Agnieska Holland's Europa, Europa starring Julie Delpy).
Written by von Trier and Niels Vorsel, Europa chronicles von Trier's tale of the disintegration of European society. Straying away from the futuristic, post-noir style of Element of Crime and the bleak presentation of Epidemic, Europa goes back in time to 1945 Germany, shortly after the second World War. The story revolves around a naive American who goes to Germany to work with his German uncle as he falls for a woman who wants him to be a part of a plan for a fleeing group of possible Nazi sympathizers. Eschewing his stylish frame of cinema, von Trier pulls out all the stops for optical work, camera tricks with many of the film shot in black-and-white with a mix of color. Starring Jean-Marc Barr, Barbara Sukowa, Erik Mork, Eddie Constantine, Ernst-Hugo Jaregard, Udo Kier, and Max Von Sydow as the narrator. Europa is a visual spectacle where von Trier pulls out every trick in the book.
A young American named Leopold Kessler arrives to Germany in post-war 1945 to meet his uncle (Ernst-Hugo Jaregard) to work in the Zentropa train company. Though his uncle is happy to see him, he's going through hard time after the war as Germany is now in chaos and in the process of demilitarization. After passing some inspections, Leopold is forced to learn some strict rules and guidelines. Then, his uncle is called as he and Leopold have been asked to work in a restored train car. For Leo, it's a big step since the old car is one of the most prestigious. With the young, idealistic Leo working in the train car as a sleeping car conductor, he meets a young woman named Katharina Hartmann (Barbara Sukowa).
The meeting proved to be a good thing for Leo who gets to meet the Hartmann family who runs the Zentropa company as Leo's uncle thinks it's a good thing. Leo meets her brother Lawrence (Udo Kier), her father Max (Jorgen Reenberg), and Father Jaregard (Erik Mork) at a dinner about the chaos Germany is in after the war. They talk about a company of Nazi-sympathizers trying to reclaim power called Werewolf as Leo suspects that the family could be part of the team. After being called to return to dinner in a different day, his suspicions were stopped when an American colonel named Harris (Eddie Constantine) asks him to keep an eye on everything that is going in the company car he's working on. Leo at first thinks the job is easy but his uncle doesn't think so. Especially after an incident when two kids, claiming they're friends of the Hartmanns attempted to assassinate a man who was going to be a new mayor.
The attempt was a partial success as Leo meets the Hartmanns again for dinner where Harris is awaiting the results of a questionnaire that Max has answered. Harris then accompanies a Jewish man (Lars von Trier) to read the results of the questionnaire as Max passes since the Jewish man doesn't recognize him. After a cryptic message Max gives to Leo, Leo and Katharina have fallen for each other as she presents him her father's train set that includes the railways of Zentropa. Harris' intentions of the questionnaire was to restore the railway for Max but all of a sudden, Max commits suicide. An impromptu funeral at a stop was interrupted when Leo was taken by a man named Siggy (Henning Jensen) who was the one had his nephew as an assassin. Siggy wanted Leo to take part on a plan that will win one for the Werewolf company.
One month later, Father Jaregard invites Leo to a church service for Christmas where Leo meets Katharina again as the two wed. With an upcoming conductor exam approaching, Leo seems to live a happy life until Katharina asks him to come to Frankfurt for an emergency. Siggy was there as he wants Leo to plant a bomb on a train to blow up a bridge. The timing couldn't have been worse as Leo's uncle wants him to get on with the exam on the day of the bombing. Katharina has been kidnaped as he learns the true intentions of what is going on as he realizes that he's a pawn of a seedy, inhuman plan.
The idea of conventional thrillers are something that is done in cinema but von Trier is very unconventional by bringing his radical, experimental approach to storytelling. Using all of the visual and technical camera tricks, rear-projections, super-imposed shots, and mixing color with black-and-white with computers. The enfant terrible goes for style while using all of those ideas to bring unconventional themes to his story. The storyteller of von Trier is really telling a story about a man who is pulled into all of these situations of conformity only to rebel in the end. There's even one poignant scene in which von Trier had Max Hartmann, just before his death, give a cryptic warning to Leopold Kessler.
The script is filled with kind of tension and dreamlike quality that appeared in all of von Trier's films but the film is also like previous parts of his European trilogy of The Element of Crime and Epidemic, the disintegration of Europe. In Europa, Germany's defeat in World War II really is defined as the end of an old Europe with Russia becoming a superpower and countries are being split into political factions. Something that would hurt Germany even more in the 1960s as it got split before officially reuniting in 1990. The tension is there as we see Americans taking over with the corruptible Colonel Harris wanting to control Zentropa trains for his own political gain. It's a film about power in the simplistic form. Even the narration of Max Von Sydow gives the film an impending doom for the protagonist along with foreshadowing events on what he might do.
The directing style of von Trier is all over the place like in his eerie, post-noir debut feature Element of Crime. Going mostly for black-and-white, there's moments in the film where it's very multi-dimensional on a visual scale where Leo would sleep and behind him, there's a message flashing with big letters across the screen. There's shots where there's another projection screen on display where it's like the audience is seeing two films in one. Then there's the use of color where von Trier would get the characters to go into color for emotional intensity or in an act of violence. There's a lot of spectacular moments in his directing except for the fact that he couldn't keep the film move fast enough to make it more interesting which is why the film does suffer a bit from its slow pacing. Also, because of its experimental, radical approach, the film might seem to other people as something very pretentious.
Helping von Trier in the technical, visual department are his team of cinematographers led by Henning Bendsten who brings an authenticity and graininess to the film's black-and-white photography while Edward Klosinski and Jean-Paul Meurisse bring in the more visual spectacle elements of color and rear-projection shots. Editor Herve Schneid also brings in a fluid, stylized editing format that helps brings tension to the film including in its intense moments though he too couldn't help von Trier's slow, languid directing style. Production designer Henning Bahs does wonderful work in capturing post-Germany's bleak outlook while costume designer Manon Rasmussen helps captures the time in the clothes, notably the business-like clothing of Katharina. Joachim Holbek brings in a symphonic, dreamy score in the film's dramatic moments but when the film intensifies into action, the score goes into full on overdrive.
Then there's the film's amazingly, superb cast of actors in which a few of them like Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier, and Ernst-Hugo Jaregard would become regulars to von Trier's films. Now most directors would love to appear in their own films and von Trier makes a great impression as a Jewish man from the Holocaust who signs a questionnaire for the guilt-ridden Max Hartmann. The late Ernst-Hugo Jaregard is excellent as the strict uncle of Leopold who is concerned with his nephew's future while having no remorse for what he is going through, especially at the troubling time his country is in as Jaregard gives a guarded, moralistic performance. Eddie Constantine is also wonderful as the American Colonel Harris who is a patriotic man who wants to rebuild the Zentropa railway station but his intentions are very strange since he's hoping it would give him power but is conflict over his own duties as he tries to find the remaining werewolf company.
Jorgen Reenberg is excellent as the guilt-ridden, weary Max Hartmann who realizes that all of his deeds in supporting Nazi Germany might get him trouble. Reenberg brings in a lot of the emotional tension of countryman wanting forgiveness while becoming an unlikely parental source for Leopold. Erik Mork also plays the moral card as the sympathetic and indifferent Father Jaregard who tries to show Max the right way while not wanting to be involved with any kind of troubles as he presents the rare moral guide of the film. Udo Kier is wonderfully devilish as the power-hungry Lawrence who has his issues with war and is hoping to go to America and gain some power there. Barbara Sukowa is wonderful as the complex Katharina who seduces Leopold with her beauty while having some dark intentions as her character has a conflicted side to herself since she wants what's best for her country or what she wants from Leopold which is love.
Jean-Marc Barr delivers probably his greatest performance to date as the naive, idealistic Leopold. Barr brings in all sorts of innocence early on to the role only to be confused and dumbfounded by his surroundings and the rules he's forced to live with. Barr really gives the film its heart as a dreamer who wants everything a man wants but finds himself in places that he doesn't like. When he rebels, we see Barr go into a full-on mode of some intense acting. It's no wonder von Trier has kept him all of these years into many of his films.
When Europa came out in 1991, it was von Trier's first real international success as the film became an art house hit in the U.S. The film was praised for its technical achievements as Steven Spielberg invited von Trier to come to the U.S. to do a film but the plane-phobic von Trier refused. Especially after what happened at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival where despite the overwhelming critical acclaim, von Trier managed to get two prizes at the festival's main competition including a technical prize and a third-place special Jury Prize while the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink won the Palme D'or that year. In response to his prizes, von Trier thanked the jury's president Roman Polanski by calling him a "midget" and giving the jury the finger as he threw the prizes to the sea.
Despite its acclaim and success, Europa marked the end of an era for von Trier as he would go into a personal, mid-life crisis where he would stray away from the perfectionist, stylized approach of directing from his European trilogy to aim for honesty that would be seen in his Dogme 95 movement and his 1996 masterpiece Breaking the Waves. Still, Europa remains one of his essential and finer works of the controversial, prolific Danish director. Fans of latter-day von Trier films would find his technical approach to filmmaking interesting while it's something the early von Trier fans do enjoy. While his latter-day work like Breaking the Waves, Dogville, and Dancer in the Dark are his best work, Europa stands alongside there too for the always confrontational Lars von Trier.
Lars von Trier's bizarre yarn concerns Leopold Kessler Jean-Marc Barr a German American who becomes involved in a surreal nightmare in postwar Germany...More at Family Video
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