Europa

Film Info

Denmark
1991
107 minutes
Color, Black and White
2.35:1
English, German, Danish
Spine #454

“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 Kessler	Jean-Marc Barr
Katharina Hartmann	Barbara Sukowa
Lawrence Hartmann	Udo Kier
Uncle Kessler	Ernst-Hugo Järegård
Siggy	Henning Jensen
Pater	Erik Mørk
Colonel Harris	Eddie Constantine
Narrator	Max von Sydow

Credits

Director	Lars von Trier
Producer	Peter Aalbæk Jensen and Bo Christensen
Executive producers	Gerard Mital, Gunnar Obel, Patrick Godeau and François Duplat
Screenplay	Lars von Trier and Niels Vørsel
Cinematography	Henning Bendtsen, Jean-Paul Meurisse and Edward Klosinsky
Production design	Henning Bahs
Music	Joakim Holbek
Costume designer	Manon Rasmussen
Editing	Hervé Schneid
Sound designer	Per Streit Jensen
Sound recordist	Pierre 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