Europa (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Europa
Directed by	Lars von Trier
Produced by	Peter Aalbæk Jensen Bo Christensen
Written by	Lars von Trier Niels Vørsel
Starring	Jean-Marc Barr Barbara Sukowa Ernst-Hugo Järegård Eddie Constantine Erik Mørk Henning Jensen
Music by	Joachim Holbek
Cinematography	Henning Bendtsen Edward Klosinski Jean-Paul Meurisse
Editing by	Hervé Schneid
Distributed by	Nordisk Film
Release date(s)	12th May 1991 (premiere in Cannes Film Festival)
Running time	112 min.
Language	English German language
IMDb profile

Europa (also known as Zentropa), is the title of Lars von Trier's third theatrical feature film, released in 1991. Co-written by von Trier and Niels Vørsel, it tells the story of a young, idealistic American who hopes to "show some kindness" to the German people soon after the end of World War II. In US-occupied Germany, he takes work as a sleeping car conductor for the Zentropa railway network, falls in love with a femme fatale, and becomes embroiled in a pro-Nazi terrorist conspiracy.

The film, which was released worldwide as Europa but was called Zentropa in America in order to avoid confusion with Europa Europa, won three awards at the Cannes Film Festival (Best Artistic Contribution, Jury Prize, and Technical Grand Prize). Upon realizing that he did not win the Palme d'Or, von Trier gave the judges the finger and stormed out of the venue.

The film employs an experimental style of cinema; combining largely black and white visuals with occasional intrusions of colour (two years before Schindler's List featured the same effect), having actors interact with rear-projected footage, and layering different images over one another to surreal effect. The film's characters, music, dialogue, and plot are self-consciously melodramatic and ironically imitative of film noir conventions.

Von Trier's production company, Zentropa Entertainments, is named after the sinister railway network featured in this film.