| View Larger Image | Europa - Criterion Collection | DVDStarring: Jean-Marc Barr, Max Von Sydow, Barbara Sukowa
Directed By: Lars von Trier
| List Price: | $39.95 | | Price: | $35.49 | | You Save: | $4.46 (11%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | DVD | | Rating: |  | | Run Time: | 107 minutes | | Format: | Black & White, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen | | Studio: | Criterion Collection | | Number of Discs: | 2 | | Aspect Ratio: | 2.35:1 | | Release Date: | December 09, 2008 | | Sales Rank: | 53,670rd |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
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.SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES: New, restored high-definition digital transfer Audio commentary featuring director Lars von Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen (in Danish) 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 |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 35 reviews)
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Wanted to Like It, but Ultimately Not Interesting Enough by Glenn Gallagher (Sacramento, CA)  3 Stars
October 09, 2009
I know this film Europa (also known as Zentropa) is supposed to be great, but ultimately, I just found it quite uninteresting. I thought Lars Von Trier's "Breaking The Waves" was quite brilliant, but Europa was a little too meandering and unfocused to keep my attention.
I do give the director some credit for at least avoiding the usual film-making cliches, but I got the feeling he doesn't really care about the audience, either - it's like he made this movie just to please himself, but forgot to ask if his guests (we the audience) were having a good time.
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Europa by C. J. Rollins  4 Stars
September 12, 2009
I really enjoyed this picture on the first viewing. However, it needs multiple viewings for full appreciation. The transfer from B&W to color and back is interesting and done very well on certain scenes. The director (von Trier) did a great job in making this 90's picture feel like the traditionally yesteryear noir genre (set in Germany; post-WWII). Also, interesting that this is the last part of a trilogy, yet does very well on its own.
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First Criterion Release I Couldn't Finish by E. Kimball (Texas)  1 Stars
September 10, 2009
I'm a film lover and own several Criterion Collection DVDs and browse their catalogue regularly with great interest. Many of them are among the best I've seen, and I'd like to think I know a good movie when I see one. But I must admit, sometimes Criterion misses. And this one's a miss. I can only describe this movie as unbelievably pretentious with virtually no redeeming qualities. I won't go into specifics as I think to do so would be a waste of time. This is the first, and will probably be the only, time I have turned off a Criterion Collection movie before it was over. Needless to say Europa was a blind buy for me, as most Criterions are, based on the 4½ star review on Amazon at the time of writing this. I feel obligated to give this release a 1 star rating to offset those reviewers who have been fooled and given a very undeserved 5 star rating and it just so happens that is the rating this film deserves.
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Definitely worth watching, but ultimately hollow and a missed opportunity... by Grigory's Girl (NYC) 3 Stars
April 24, 2009
This is one of Von Trier's most unseen films. It was initially released as Zentropa (the name of Lars's production company) to avoid confusion with Europa, Europa. When it was released on home video initially, it was a pan and scan print that did no justice to the film. Now, Criterion has put it out in a stunning, 2.35:1 DVD, so is it a good film?
There is much to like in Europa. The cinematography and the mise-en-scene is beautiful. Von Trier's early work (this film and The Element of Crime, his debut) show a great eye for composition and framing that was abandoned in his later work for a hand held, jump cut style. He also uses long takes in this film quite well, and the film has one of the more unique looks in his filmography. It is mostly shot in black and white with splashes of color. There are a lot of back screen projections that give the film a real sense of nightmare, and it works quite well.
There are some very funny moments, especially with Ernst-Hugo Järegård as the uncle who gets his American nephew, Jean-Marc Barr, a job working in Germany after WWII. He gives the best performance in the film. Jean-Marc Barr's performance is good, but his character is rather one note. Barr's character is so simplistically written he might as well have had "idealist" tattooed to his forehead. In fact, the script of Europa is the weakest thing about the film. You can marvel at the look of the film (and it does look fantastic), but ultimately, it's not an insightful look at post-war Germany. Most of the dialogue is expository, and most of the characters feel like caricatures, not real people. In fact, aside from Ernst-Hugo Järegård's character (which is very funny), the whole cast (with former Fassbinder regulars Barbara Sukowa & Udo Kier, and Godard and Fassbinder regular Eddie Constantine) slog their way through their one note characterisations. They're such good actors that they're worth watching, but I wish they had more to do.
While they are some amazing shots in this film, it's a rather hollow film. Still, I did like it, even though I felt it could have been much more profound.
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Going Hell World by Michael Kerjman (The Earth) 3 Stars
March 28, 2009
Probably, von Trier ought in oncoming epochs to be epitomized in cinematographic notebooks with his works' most distinct feature-to-remember of mixing the reality with some psychotic mysticism in a bowl of a local landscape incorporated -not telling more- eroticism-on-all-tastes-and-preferences.
To a viewer not acquainted with film's two sequels preceding-if they had been interlinked at least as of Three Colors Trilogy (Blue / White / Red) parts were, this work is something philosophic, expressing a fate of "living by sword" while characters were engaged into a modestly screened variety of sex-activities in a black-and-white reality of illogical script actions.
Well, there are many masterpieces not supposed for the Joe Doe's understanding.
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