Europa (1991) [The Criterion Collection]

Director: Lars von Trier
Writers: Lars von Trier, Niels Vørsel
Stars: Barbara Sukowa, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier

Lars von Trier’s Europe Trilogy
With his dazzling first three features, Lars von Trier sought nothing less than to map the soul of Europe—its troubled past, anxious present, and uncertain future. Linked by a fascination with hypnotic states and the mesmeric possibilities of cinema, the films that make up the Europe Trilogy—The Element of Crime, Epidemic, and Europa—filter the continent’s turbulent history, guilt, and traumas through the Danish provocateur’s audacious deconstructions of genres including film noir, melodrama, horror, and science fiction. Above all, they are bravura showcases for von Trier’s hallucinatory visuals, with each shot a tour de force of technical invention and dark imagination.

“You will now listen to my voice . . . On the count of ten you will be in Europa.” Max von Sydow’s ominous, hypnotic induction inaugurates the entrancing final installment of Lars von Trier’s Europe Trilogy. An idealistic American (Jean-Marc Barr) travels to postwar Germany to take a job as a sleeping-car conductor for the Zentropa railways—and finds himself plunged into a murky, Kafkaesque world of intrigue and betrayal where the shadow of Nazism hovers menacingly over everything. With its ravishing cinematography (in black and white, color, and at times a stunning mix of both), dreamlike use of rear projections, and lush fusion of melodrama and noir conventions, Europa is a sublimely stylized cinematic fugue.

Extras:
- 4K digital restoration, approved by director Lars von Trier, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack
- Audio commentaries featuring von Trier, producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen, and actors Jean-Marc Barr and Udo Kier
- Making-of documentary from 1991
- Documentary from 1991 featuring an interview with von Trier and footage from the set as well as the film's Cannes premiere and press conference
- Interview from 2005 with von Trier about the Europe Trilogy
- Programs featuring interviews with film scholar Peter Schepelern and many of von Trier's collaborators
- Trailer
- English subtitle translation and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing