TUESDAY 18 NOV – H 21:00 – ROOM 5

EUROPA
DENMARK – 1991 – b/n e color – 107’

Direction: Lars von Trier
Screenplay: Lars von Trier, Niels Vorsel
Cinematography: Henning Bendtsen, Edward Klosinski, Jean-Paul Meurisse
Editing: Hervé Schneid
Production design: Henning Bahs
Music: Joachim Holbek
Costumes: Manon Rasmussen
Cast: Jean-Marc Barr (Leopold Kessler), Barbara Sukowa (Katharina Hartmann), Udo Kier (Lawrence Hartmann), Ernst-Hugo Järegård (uncle Kessler), Erik Mørk (Pater), Eddie Costantine (Col. Harris), Benny Poulsen (Steleman), Claus Flygare (father), Jørgen Reenberg (Max Hartmann), Leif Magnusson (Dr. Magnus), Henning Jensen (Siggy), Max von Sydow (voice), Lars von Trier (jew), Anne Warner Thomsen (Mrs. Ravenstein), Caecilia Holbek Trier (maid)
Producers: Peter Aalbæk Jensen, Bo Christensen
Production: Nordisk Film, Gérard Mital Productions, WMG Film
Italian distribution: Movies Inspired

Synopsis
Leopold Kessler, a young American of German descent, arrives in Germany at the end of 1945. He wants to get to know his father’s country and work there, where his uncle, an old and fussy sleeper-car conductor employed by the Zentropa railway company, helps him in this endeavor. While traveling with his gruff relative for work, Leopold discovers the current face of Germany. He witnesses its destruction and terrible wounds and meets a compatriot—Colonel Harris of the Occupation Forces, who maintains many intriguing connections with former enemies. Leopold also becomes close to the Hartmann family, whose patriarch takes a liking to him. He falls in love with Hartmann’s daughter, Katharina, who had once been closely tied to hardline Nazi ideals but now declares herself repentant and marries her. Then Hartmann commits suicide…

critical note
“The movie is symbolic, although perhaps in a different way for every viewer. I read it as a film about the death throes of Nazism, which is represented by the train, and the moral culpability of Americans and others who turned up too late to save the victims of these trains and the camps where they delivered their doomed human cargo. The train, and the Nazi state, are dead, but like cartoon figures they continue to jerk through their motions; the message from the brain has not reached the body. The best moments in the movie are the purely visual ones.”
(Roger Ebert, July 3, 1992,Chicago Sun-Times)

main awards and festivals
1991 Festival di Cannes – Competition: Special Jury Prize, Technical Grand Prize
1991 Bodil Awards: Best Film
1991 Stockholm FF: Bronze Horse
1991 Sitges IFF: Best Film, Cinematography
1992 Danish Film Awards: Best Film, Editing, Original Score, Cinematography, Set Design, Sound, Special Effects
1992 Santa Barbara IFF: Special Jury Prize for Artistic Merit