Europa

Lars von Trier

Denmark

1991

107 minutes

Color, Black and White

2.35:1

English, German, Danish

454

Synopsis

“You will now listen to my voice . . . On the count of ten you will be in Europa . . .” So begins Max von Sydow’s opening narration to Lars von Trier’s hypnotic Europa (known in the U.S. as Zentropa), a fever dream in which American pacifist Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr) stumbles into a job as a sleeping-car conductor for the Zentropa railways in a Kafkaesque 1945 postwar Frankfurt. With its gorgeous black-and-white and color imagery and meticulously recreated (if then nightmarishly deconstructed) costumes and sets, Europa is one of the great Danish filmmaker’s weirdest and most wonderful works, a runaway-train ride to an oddly futuristic past.

Cast

Leopold KesslerJean-Marc Barr
Katharina HartmannBarbara Sukowa
Lawrence Hartmann Udo Kier
Uncle KesslerErnst-Hugo Järegård
SiggyHenning Jensen
PaterErik Mørk
NarratorMax von Sydow

Credits

DirectorLars von Trier
ProducerPeter Aalbæk Jensen and Bo Christensen
Executive producersGerard Mital, Gunnar Obel, Patrick Godeau and François Duplat
ScreenplayLars von Trier and Niels Vørsel
CinematographyHenning Bendtsen, Jean-Paul Meurisse and Edward Klosinsky
Production DesignHenning Bahs
MusicJoakim Holbek
Costume designerManon Rasmussen
EditingHervé Schneid
Sound designerHerve Schneid
Sound recordistPierre Excoffier

Disc Features

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET:

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Audio commentary featuring director Lars von Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen (in Danish, with English subtitles)
  • The Making of “Europa” (1991), a documentary following the film from storyboarding to production
  • Trier’s Element (1991), a documentary featuring an interview with von Trier, and footage from the set and Europa’s Cannes premiere and press conference
  • Anecdotes from Europa (2005), a short documentary featuring interviews with film historian Peter Schepelern, actor Jean-Marc Barr, producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen, assistant director Tómas Gislason, co-writer Niels Vørsel, and prop master Peter Grant
  • 2005 interviews with cinematographer Henning Bendtsen, composer Joachim Holbek, costume designer Manon Rasmussen, film-school teacher Mogens Rukov, editor/director Tómas Gislason, producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen, art director Peter Grant, actor Michael Simpson, production manager Per Arman, actor Ole Ernst
  • A conversation with Lars von Trier from 2005, in which the director speaks about the “Europa” trilogy
  • Europa—The Faecal Location (2005), a short film by Gislason
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Howard Hampton

From the Current

Manifesto No. 3: Europa

by Lars von Trier Dec 9, 2008

Years before he and Thomas Vinterberg issued the well-known Dogme 95 manifesto, Lars von Trier wrote three similarly impassioned artist’s statements, one to accompany each of the films that make up his loosely configured “Europe Trilogy”: The Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic

Europa: Night Train

by Howard Hampton Dec 4, 2008

Seduction by locomotive. Gliding on silvery reels of steel, tricked out with Lars von Trier’s stated panoply of “front and back projections, double exposure...

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Available Editions

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9 Dec 2008

DVD

2 Discs

SRP: $39.95

Criterion Store price

$31.96