Europa

Europa

Directed by Lars von Trier • 1991 • Spain, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Switzerland

"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.

Europa
  • Europa

    Directed by Lars von Trier • 1991 • Spain, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Switzerland

    "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 fe...

Extras

  • EUROPA Commentary 1

    This commentary is presented in Danish with English subtitles and features director Lars von Trier and producer Peter Aalbaek Jensen.

  • EUROPA Commentary 2

    This selected-scene commentary track, recorded in 2005, features director Lars von Trier and actors Jean-Marc Barr and Udo Kier.

  • The Making of EUROPA

    This documentary, produced by Same Films in 1991, covers the making of EUROPA from its conception as the third chapter in director Lars von Trier’s Europa trilogy through the painstaking storyboarding process to the film’s full-scale production.

  • Trier’s Element

    This documentary features an interview with director Lars von Trier as well as footage from both the set of EUROPA and the film’s premiere and press conference at Cannes in 1991.

  • Anecdotes from EUROPA

    This short 2005 documentary about EUROPA’s production features interviews with film historian Peter Schepelern, actor Jean-Marc Barr, producer Peter Aalbaek Jensen, assistant director Tomas Gislason, cowriter Niels Vorsel, and prop master Peter Grant.

  • Henning Bendtsen on His Career

    In this 2005 interview, Henning Bendtsen talks about his early experiences as a young director of photography for Carl Theodor Dreyer and about his final films, made with Lars von Trier.

  • Joachim Holbek on EUROPA

    In this 2005 interview, composer Joachim Holbek discusses the method he and Lars von Trier employed in writing EUROPA’s musical score.

  • Lars von Trier—Anecdotes

    This 2005 documentary about various collaborators’ experiences working with Lars von Trier features interviews with costume designer Manon Rasmussen, film school teacher Mogens Rukov, editor-director Tomas Gislason, producer Peter Aalbaek Jensen, art director Peter Grant, actor Michael Simpson, p...

  • Lars von Trier on the Europa Trilogy

    In this 2005 interview, Danish journalist Bo Green Jensen talks to Lars von Trier about the Europa trilogy.

  • Europa—The Faecal Location

    Directed by Tómas Gislason • 2005 • Denmark

    This short film by Thomas Gislason was produced in 2005.