Zentropa, one of the best films of all time…

Zentropa or Europa, a 1991 film directed by the forever controversial and twisted Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier showed a complete disregard for mainstream movies, it throws out the rule book and finally spit on it… The result, creating a mind bending and hallucinogenic industrial film-noir pastiche that references sources as diverse as Hitchcock, objectively, one of best films ever crafted…

The plot 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 brazenly idealistic... peering out from behind his spectacles with wide eyes as he bravely suffers ridicule from all around him. Amongst this central narrative device we have the usual film-noir conventions... shadowy businessmen, the femme-fatal etc. However, the film always comes back to von Trier's central preoccupation. 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, von Trier concludes that those who live in false hope will sooner or later be smashed by a manipulative and un-loving system.

Shot in a sort of, off black and white - meaning that the images have been given a blue tint, with deeply rich shadows - and framed in 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.

Here we have he a vision of Europe in decline, with Germany attempting to claw they're selves out of the ashes and regain power as an important society. 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, he a patsy to the audience, a puppet. He's an American going back to a country that his own military helped destroy, he represents arrogant idealism, pointing out Germany's own weaknesses and posturing to gain acceptance. This is a much bleaker film once we start dealing with sub-text, as the scene that prefigures Max Hartman's funeral will attest. This is a stirring and imaginative film dealing with themes such as deception, manipulation and eventual corruption.

Needless to say the film employs dream-logic, unfolding subjectively and expressionistically from the central character's point of view. This is a film that will linger long in your psyche, as the closing moments leave the audience adrift at sea, as lost and alone as Kessler... as Von Sydow observes in the narration; "we want to wake up, to leave behind the images of Europa... but it is not possible". (A)

posted by basmayor @ 5:59 PM