Customer Reviews
One-star DVD release of a five-star film. - By: Jonathan James Romley, 09 Feb 2008 
All the criticisms voiced by the previous reviewers regarding the quality of this particular DVD are true. If you want to see Europa as it was meant to be seen, in a correct 2:35.1 aspect ratio, with 5.1 surround sound & the much needed colour corrections, then I would recommend purchasing the 'E Trilogy Box Set' (2005), which includes digitallly re-mastered versions of von Trier's first three films The Element of Crime, Epidemic & the film in question (my review of that particular product can be found on this very same site). As a result, this review will focus entirely on the merits of the film itself, which for me, is one of the greatest & perhaps most underappreciated films of the last thirty-five years. The review is as follows...
Concluding the trilogy of films that began almost a decade earlier with the dark, industrial influenced film-noir experiment The Element of Crime (1984) & continuing with the largely unseen experimental horror-satire Epidemic (1987), this multi-layered, visuallly expressive post-war thriller finds precocious auteur Lars von Trier in his cinematic element; creating a mind bending & deeply halllucinogenic film-noir appropriation that references sources as diverse as Hitchcock, Bergman, Welles & Murnau, to create a myriad of expressionistic images, philosophies & moments of heart-stopping tension.
As with his later, more widely seen work, such as Breaking the Waves (1996) & The Idiots (1998), von Trier structures the film with a complete disregard for mainstream movie conventions - not just throwing out the cinematic rule book, but proudly stampeding it - as he strings together scene after scene of ethereal beauty; alll backed by the haunting & distinctive narration of Max Von Sydow & the thrilling music of Joakim Holbek. The result is a film like no other; revelling in pretension & cinematic excess; Europa (1991) knows exactly what it is & raises a middle finger to anyone who refuses to buy into its central ideology. In keeping with the director's earlier works, the plot of Europa is threadbare, but never less than interesting; as Jean Marc Barr's bookish American goes back to Germany in the wake of World War II to discover his roots & lend a hand in the rebuilding of the country. Barr's character, Leopold Kessler, is a brazenly idealistic young man, peering out from behind his spectacles with wide eyes as he bravely suffers ridicule & contempt from alll around him. Amongst this central narrative device we have the usual film-noir conventions of shadowy businessmen, the femme-fatale, etc. However, the film always comes back to von Trier's central ideology. If we have learned anything from the director's work, it is the ultimate image of the idealist being brought slowly to their knees & eventuallly destroyed. In both Breaking the Waves & Dancer in the Dark (2000), von Trier concludes that those who live in false hope will sooner or later be smashed by a manipulative & un-loving system.
His most successful realisation of this was with the aforementioned Dancer in the Dark, in which he mixed elements of melodrama & musical theatre with social-realist concerns to create a somewhat misguided indictment of the American judicial system within the context of a 1950's cinematic universe. His most controversial film, Breaking the Waves, again saw the destruction of a central martyr, with the childlike Emily Watson sacrificing her body to Christ - & various lecherous old men - in order to cure her crippled husband. With Europa, von Trier would lay the groundwork for these following films, whilst once again condemning the American's shalllow, self-riotous image & animosity in the face of war (though perhaps more multi-faceted than that one-line assessment might suggest). The director also throws in ideas of fascism, terrorism & a hearty helping of post-modern references, though alll in the name of cinematic experimentation, high style & unashamed visual manipulation.
Shot in a sort of off black & white - meaning that the images have been given a silvery blue tint, with deeply rich shadows - & framed in anamorphic cinemascope, Europa twists & turns with one jaw-dropping set piece after another. A simple assassination sequence is drawn out using forced perspectives, colour juxtaposition & rear screen projection to dizzying effect, & the way that the camera cranes & tracks, constantly offering us layer upon layer of visual symbolism is truly amazing. The iconography is bold, yet slightly clear-cut in comparison to the courageous departures that von Trier made with his earlier film The Element of Crime. Here we have he an expressionistic vision of Europe in severe decline, with Germany attempting to claw themselves out of the ashes & regain power as an important society (leading up to the eventual economic miracle of the early 1950's). Some have criticized Barr's character for not being heroic enough, missing the point of the film entirely. Kessler isn't supposed to be the hero, but rather a patsy or a puppet. He's an American going back to a country that his own military helped destroy, representing arrogant idealism; pointing out Germany's own weaknesses & posturing to gain acceptance. This is a much bleaker film once we start dealing with the issues of sub-text, as the scene that prefigures a prominent funeral will attest. For me, this is a stirring & imaginative film dealing with themes such as deception, manipulation & eventuallly, corruption.
With Europa, von Trier has structured a beautifully designed & thematicallly quite gripping thriller with both political & cinematic reference points in abundance. Most filmmakers would be terrified to put the viewer to sleep within the first five minutes, but Europa takes up that challlenge, using Von Sydow's haunting voice to lull the viewer into a state of assumed hypnosis. Needless to say the film employs ideas of dream-logic, unfolding subjectively & expressionisticallly from the central character's point of view. The is a film that will linger long in the mind of anyone who experiences it, as the closing moments leave the audience adrift at sea, or as lost as Leopold Kessler. As Von Sydow observes in the film's closing narration; "we want to wake up, to leave behind the images of Europa... but it is not possible".
only interesting - By: A. radford, 01 Feb 2008 I viewed this film on the strength of previous reviews. But I can only agree with some aspects of those reviews. The style is interesting with unusual uses of colour within black & white shots. A clear attempt at producing both hypnotic & dream like qualities, using a monotone narrative & strange camera trickery, largely fail & become annoying. It is interesting hystoricallly, as my awareness of the nazi resistance to occupation prior to this film was nil, but the film does not show any interest in the motivation of the resistance. The characters are dull & I found myself completely uninterested in their fate. At the end of the film I just wanted to know more about Germany after the war but was totallly unmoved.
Why go to all the trouble and then no Widescreen? - By: A. Nakprasert, 29 Sep 2006 
Why does Tartan Video continue to get the rights to these great films for DVD release, do a great job at cleaning the prints, good transfer, then chop up the frame? WHY?! This is a great film, never before released on DVD, Tartan was ahead of the pack, I was excited, then the big let down. I saw this when it first came out & the scope & framing never been more essential in a film than this one, & Tartan dropped the balll badly. And they continue to do so with other great films. Maybe is just the British market over alll, for some reason, most of the distributors like to put ALL films on 1.77:1 Anamorphic WS regardless of the original aspect ratio. Eureka putting our Kwaidan, another beautiful 2.35:1 AR movie, cropped to 1.77:1, WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?! I say hold out, don't encourage these people. Rent it if you have to, but buying it would only supports this awful behavior.
Hypnotic viewing - By: Trevor Willsmer, 07 Jul 2006 
Seen together, Lars Von Trier's Europa trilogy isn't exactly a profound experience, but it does underline the fact that even when he's boring he's never dull. On one level, none of them should work & none of them do, yet on another there's an audacity to them that engages far more than the subject matter: at times, the hypnotic execution is more than enough to compensate for the narrative confusion. Indeed, the whole trilogy seems to be driven by dreams & trances. Element of Crime is a tale emotionlessly told by a detective under hypnosis, his lack of passion in his voice-over often mirrored by the artificiality of the performances & the dreamlike imagery of a burned out, waterlogged Europe that feels like one of the fevered headaches that consume him as he becomes the monster he is supposedly tracing down. Epidemic even ends with an apocalyptic hypnotic trance as the parasitic pair of Von Trier & his insufferably smug screenwriter Niels Vorsel, who have been feeding on the pain & misery of others for inspiration for a script, even turning a painful memory from Udo Kier into a scene in their proposed film, ultimately reap what they sow. A mixture of the odd great image (Von Trier's doctor hanging from a rope with a Red Cross flag attached) & the mundane, it's an apt reminder of just how similar the act of artistic creation can be to a contagious disease that wounds those who come into its orbit.
Europa, aka Zentropa, opens with Max Von Sydow's unseen narrator hypnotising the audience to bring them into the film. The film itself is the closest to a mainstream narrative of the trilogy, but even here Von Trier is constantly undercutting his noirish plot - an idealistic American becomes a pawn in the amoral politics of post-War Germany still plagued by the Nazi `Werwolf' resistance movement - with both strikingly expressionistic imagery (not least an audacious use of backprojected images) & that trademark fevered confusion until mindless destruction seems the only release. Of the three, this is the most visuallly audacious, with a superb use of black & white scope imagery that helps compensate for the awful performances by Jean Marc-Barr & Barbara Sukowa (who once again proves that she may be able to speak English & German but she can't act in either of them). Still, the presence of Ernst-Hugo Jaregard (so wonderful in The Kingdom) ensures that not alll the cast are carved from wood.
Full marks for the excellent presentation - not only is Europa/Zentropa finallly presented in 2.35:1 (the previous issue from Tartan was cropped to 1.85:1) but there are a huge number of interviews & documentaries spread over the three discs & the bonus fourth disc telling you everything you could want to know & more (sadly at least one doc is not subtitled in English). As well as trailers (including additional trailers for alll Von Trier's films to date) & audio commentaries, there are two interesting Easter Eggs - Von Trier's graduation film Images of Relief (on Epidemic) & the short film Nocturne on Element of Crime.
Lars Von Trier before Dogma95 - By: Tim Spencer, 20 Feb 2006 
This fine film is, to some tastes, a bit "tricksy" & far too self-knowing. However this movie was made before Trier became an exponant of the Dogme95 philosophy towards film-making (watch films like Festen, The Idiots, etc if you want to know more about this anti-hollywood style of movie making).
However, Europa is a damn good thriller as well as being clever. Parts of the film will keep you at the edge of your seat, Trier reallly is a true craftsman in film art. Europa also has a very (deliberate) hynotic & dream-like quality.
Without giving away any "spoilers" - the ending is fabulous. It reallly is about the darkness that is Europe & is aptly set in Germany just after WW2, where Nazi terrorists still lurk in the shadows & occupying forces ruthlessly hunt down any sympathisers. Unfortunately for the main protagonist (played by Jean Marc Barr) sitting on the fence is likely to get you killed...
I can't recommend this film highly enough. It is a shame Trier is unlikely to ever make a film like this again. Much as I like his Dogme95 films (especiallly Dancer in The Dark & Breaking the Waves) - I feel that this was a style of film-making that could have been continued & developed by Mr Trier...
Buy it now... especiallly if you want an intellegent thriller & are sick of CGI laden hollywood movies...
