Europa

The concluding film of Lars von Trier's "Europa trilogy," Europa (1991) — released as Zentropa in the United States — won the Jury Prize and a prize for artistic contribution at Cannes, where the young Danish director famously bristled at not winning more. A dazzling technical experiment, it remains among the most visually audacious films of its decade.

Jean-Marc Barr plays the naïve American conductor pulled into postwar intrigue, with Barbara Sukowa as the femme fatale and Max von Sydow as the unseen narrator whose hypnotic voice addresses the protagonist — and the viewer — directly. Von Trier shoots in a delirious mix of black-and-white and colour, front and rear projection, and elaborate superimpositions, conjuring an oneiric vision of a ruined Europe that feels less like a place than a fever dream. The style is the substance: a nightmare of history rendered as pure cinematic technique.

Critics were divided between dazzlement and resistance, but its influence on stylised, dreamlike film-making has been lasting. Hypnotic, cold and formally extravagant, Europa announced von Trier as a provocateur of major technical gifts before his Dogme 95 turn toward starkness. It stands as one of the boldest visual statements in modern European cinema. Its influence on stylised, dreamlike film-making has been lasting, and it announced von Trier as a provocateur of formidable technical gifts well before his Dogme 95 turn toward deliberate starkness.