Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

e-70733 The truth of the world is the tomb of idealism. Borrowing the rudiment of a commercial story, director Lars von Trier, made this theme, which is slightly alienated from the mainstream audience, have an unparalleled power. Through a unique style of photography and way of telling, this film shows a typical aesthetic achievement that is usually available to artists in the early days of their artistic career. Therefore, although objective conditions and abilities can be improved over time, the soul of the art works can never be replaced. From this perspective, this film is a typical case.

Dickhead_Marcus_Halberstram Lars von Trier's Europa is a worthy echo of The Third Man, about an American coming to post-World War II Europe and finds himself entangled in a dangerous mystery.Jean-Marc Barr plays Leopold Kessler, a German-American who refused to join the US Army during the war, arrives in Frankfurt as soon as the war is over to work with his uncle as a sleeping car conductor on the Zentropa Railway. What he doesn't know is the war is still secretly going on with an underground terrorist group called the Werewolves who target American allies. Leopold is strongly against taking any sides, but is drawn in and seduced by Katharina Hartmann (Barbara Sukowa), the femme fatale daughter of the owner of the railway company. Her father was a Nazi sympathizer, but is pardoned by the American Colonel Harris (Eddie Considine) because he can help get the German transportation system up and running again. The colonel soon enlists, or forces, Leopold to be a spy (without giving him a choice or chance to think about it) to see if the Werewolves might carry out attacks on the trains.Soon, Leopold is stuck in an adventure by being involved with both sides of the conflict in a mysterious and film noir-ish way, where everyone and everything is not what it seems. Its amazing to watch the naive Leopold deal with everything (his lover, the terrorists, the colonel, annoying passengers, his disgruntled uncle, even the railway company's officials who come to examine his work ethic) before he finally boils over and humorously and violently takes control. The film is endlessly unpredictable.The film stylishly shot, it always takes place at night during the winter with lots of falling snow. Its shot in black and white with shots of color randomly appearing throughout. Also, background screens displaying images that counter act with the images up front. Add Max von Sydow's hypnotic narration, and Europa becomes a dreamlike place that's out of this world.This is now a personal favorite film of mine.

Graham Greene Concluding the trilogy of films that began almost a decade earlier with the dark, industrial influenced film-noir experiment The Element of Crime (1984) and continuing with the largely unseen experimental horror-satire Epidemic (1987), this multi-layered, visually expressive post-war thriller finds precocious auteur Lars von Trier in his cinematic element; creating a mind bending and deeply hallucinogenic film-noir appropriation that references sources as diverse as Hitchcock, Bergman, Welles and Murnau, to create a myriad of expressionistic images, philosophies and moments of heart-stopping tension.As with his later, more widely seen work, such as Breaking the Waves (1996) and 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; all backed by the haunting and distinctive narration of Max Von Sydow and the thrilling music of Joakim Holbek. The result is a film like no other; revelling in pretension and cinematic excess; Europa (1991) knows exactly what it is and 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 and 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 and contempt from all 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 and eventually destroyed. In both Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark (2000), von Trier concludes that those who live in false hope will sooner or later be smashed by a manipulative and unloving system.His most successful realisation of this was with the aforementioned Dancer in the Dark, in which he mixed elements of melodrama and 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 - and 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 shallow, self-riotous image and 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 and a hearty helping of post-modern references, though all in the name of cinematic experimentation, high style and unashamed visual manipulation.Shot in a sort of off black and white - meaning that the images have been given a silvery blue tint, with deeply rich shadows - and framed in anamorphic cinemascope, Europa twists and turns with one jaw-dropping set piece after another. A simple assassination sequence is drawn out using forced perspectives, colour juxtaposition and rear screen projection to dizzying effect, and the way that the camera cranes and 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 and 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 and 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 and imaginative film dealing with themes such as deception, manipulation and eventually, corruption.With Europa, von Trier has structured a beautifully designed and thematically quite gripping thriller with both political and 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 challenge, 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 and expressionistically 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".

mknezevi Today is February 21st, year 2008, Belgrade, Serbia, and I saw this film alive on the streets in Belgrade, in street clashes after big protest against West, Europa and USA. People here love Europa and Western civilization, and can't live without it, and in the same time they feel betray of it. So, youngsters angry for USA and Europe role in disintegration of Yugoslavia and now independence of Kosovo went to attack all symbols of West in city, attacking embassies, McDonalds, etc. In the evening, accidentally (believe me or not), it was Von Trier "Europe" on a local TV. At the end of film was famous (I watched this film many times before): "You want to wake up, to leave behind the image of Europa... but it is not possible". I saw it on streets on Belgrade today. Serbia today want to be Europe, and don't want- similar like Germany after WWII in this film. There are many more incredible parallels between this film and history I could watch in Belgrade today. I just want to emphasize how great and prophetic was this film. It obviously intended to show some similar experiences in people minds in Denmark in time of Danish referendum for entering in European Union, but it maybe even more properly shows present Serbia today. I am sorry to input politics on this place, but it can incredibly show how this film is more than film- it is document of contemporary European thinking in time of globalization. I am clinical psychologist and I also know how this film is great psychologically. Entering into hypnosis is nowhere showed better (believe me, I work hypnosis for money in my life), and the whole film is great in psychological way too. Incredible piece of art.