Zentropa/Europa (1991) - Von Trier's audacious ode to the heavy continent is a fever dream on celluloid

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One pretty poor poster for Lars Von Trier's Zentropa

An American idealist comes to Germany in 1945 to "do something good for the country", becoming a sleeping car conductor through a favor by his local uncle, but he soon gets himself mixed up in a hasty marriage and a dubious sabotage group.

Zentropa is Danish master co-writer-director Lars Von Trier's (Breaking the Waves (1996)) concluding film in his Europe trilogy, (also comprised by The Element of Crime/Forbrydelsens Element (1984) and Epidemic (1987).) It is an opulent film and a technically and stylistically dizzying piece, which plays around with narration, B/W and color, rear-projection and much more, not to attain common realism but rather to refer to a wealth of past cinematic works (Touch of Evil, Casablanca, the films of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lean and more) and to induce us in a hypnotic state that's central to its narrative. Non-Europeans might view the film as extremely eccentric, high-brow or even pretentious. It isn't. Its swims around in heavy thematic waters, dealing with idealism clashing with guilt and sin, tied up also on continents, more specifically North America as opposed to Europe.
Jean-Marc Barr (City of Shadows/La Cité (2010)) is Von Trier's most beautiful male protagonist to date and a great central element of Zentropa. Ernst-Hugo Järegård (Valhalla (1986)) stands out among the other actors in a peculiar and disarming role, which points ahead to his great turn as Stig Helmer in Von Trier's great horror comedy TV-series The Kingdom/Riget (1994-97)). Zentropa is full of humor as well as references to primal anxiety states, side-qualities in its deft plot that at times smacks of Kafkaesque absurdity and Dostoyevskian individuality and passion. SPOILER It also contains a drowning scene that must go down in cinema history as among the worst (meaning best) of its kind.
Zentropa is one of a kind, a damned interesting and incredibly enticing film of impressive scope, vision and willpower, the work of a master filmmaker reaching, for the first time, the height of his abilities. Von Trier co-wrote, once again, with Niels Vørsel (The Element of Crime). 

Related posts: 

Lars Von Trier:  Nymphomaniac (2013) short version, vol. 1 & vol. 2, or, Lars Von Trier's Suck It  
Melancholia (2011) - Von Trier's heightened reality doomsday reflections 
Antichrist (2009) - Von Trier's cabin-in-the-woods psycho-horror 
The Boss of It All/Direktøren for det Hele (2006) - Von Trier's hilarious absurd comedy 
Dear Wendy (2005) - Vinterberg and Von Trier's unpopular, gun-themed megaflop (writer)
Dogville (2003) - Von Trier's implacable, truly unique drama  
Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Dancer in the Dark (2000) or, Selma the Immigrant    
Epidemic (1987) - Von Trier's trippy, bizarre second film    
The Element of Crime/Forbrydelsens Element (1984) - Von Trier's ultra-strange debut

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 4 mil. $
Box office: 1.45 mil. $ (North America, Denmark and Sweden only)
= Unknown (but probably a huge flop)
[Zentropa premiered May 12 (Cannes) and runs 114 minutes. The film is influenced by Franz Kafka's novel Amerika (1911-14). It was shot in various places in Poland and in Denmark in Copenhagen and in Nordisk Film's studio. The financing of the film, which was Von Trier's biggest up to the point, featuring a large, international cast, was a collaboration between 6 European countries, marking the future way Von Trier would get his films financed. The title was changed to Zentropa for the American release so as not to clash with Agnieszka Holland's Europa Europa (1990). The film won 3 prizes in Cannes (Best Artistic Contribution, the Jury Prize and the Technical Grand Prize), but when Von Trier learned he did not win the main prize for Zentropa, he gave the judges the finger and stormed out from the ceremony. An overview of the film's theatrical performance isn't available: 31,837 paid admission in its native Denmark, making approximately 0.3 mil. $. The film made almost half that in Sweden, and 1 mil. $ in the US, where it was shown in just one cinema. This makes up just 1.45 mil. $. If Zentropa was saved by French, Italian or Spanish audiences, we don't know, but it seems unlikely that such a fact would have been kept a secret, and so it looks like a huge flop. The film won the Danish Robert and Bodil awards as Best Danish Film of the Year. Zentropa is fresh at 85 % with a 7.3 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Zentropa?

Epidemic (1987) - Von Trier's trippy, bizarre second film

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The interesting French poster for Lars Von Trier's Epidemic

Danish master co-writer/director Lars Von Trier (Dogville (2003)) and co-writer Niels Vørsel (The Element of Crime/Forbrydelsens Element (1984), co-writer) are working on the script for a new film and have a week before they are to present their 1½ years of work to the important Danish Film Institute consultant. Pressed by the deadline, with nothing conventionally good to turn in, they choose to write a new film called Epidemic about the bubonic plague in Europe, meanwhile a real, new epidemic manifests itself in their present.

Epidemic, Von Trier's second film, is the follow-up to The Element of Crime and the second film in his Europe trilogy, which concludes with Europe (1991). It is a deeply strange mix of meta-filmmaking reflections, Von Trier's own phobia of and amusement with hospitals and their authorities and trippy Europe-lore. It points ahead to both The Kingdom/Riget (1994-97) and the detour structure of Nymphomaniac (2013), and so is especially interesting for fans of Von Trier.
While Element of Crime was, to some degree, pretentious, Epidemic is almost free of this burden. Its unpredictability, atmospheric locations, absurdism and dark sense of humor keeps one interested throughout. It is an experimental work by a filmmaker in his infancy, - which I often find are rewarding works, - and a deeply weird one at that. - What other film has a high-point which is the cutting open of a paste of tooth paste? But Epidemic is more than just a bizarre cult item. It is memorable through several scenes; some amusing, such as Vørsel recounting his pen pal relation to American teen girls, some troubling and sad, such as Udo Kier's (Nymphomaniac) earnest and deeply personal recount of a terrible story from his first days alive, told to him by his mother only recently on her death bed; and finally there is the film's last scene around the dinner table, which is truly harrowing.

Related posts: 

Lars Von Trier:  Nymphomaniac (2013) short version, vol. 1 & vol. 2, or, Lars Von Trier's Suck It Melancholia (2011) - Von Trier's heightened reality doomsday reflections 
Antichrist (2009) - Von Trier's cabin-in-the-woods psycho-horror 
The Boss of It All/Direktøren for det Hele (2006) - Von Trier's hilarious absurd comedy 
Dear Wendy (2005) - Vinterberg and Von Trier's unpopular, gun-themed megaflop (writer)
Dogville (2003) - Von Trier's implacable, truly unique drama  
Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Dancer in the Dark (2000) or, Selma the Immigrant    
The Element of Crime/Forbrydelsens Element (1984) - Von Trier's ultra-strange debut

Watch the end credits of the film here with its very 1980s theme song

Cost: 1 - 1.1 mil. DKK ~ approximately 0.2 mil. $
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown (but likely a huge or mega-flop)
[Epidemic was released September 11 (Denmark) and runs 106 minutes. It was made on the extremely low budget mainly as an experiment to see if a worthwhile film could come from it. The experiment became a precursor for the Dogme movement, which Von Trier co-founded in 1995. Producer Jacob Eriksen's (Rocking Silver (1983)) production company Elementfilm A/S produced only this film. Epidemic was initially shown in just two countries; Denmark and in Portugal at the Fantasporto Film Festival, where Element of Crime had also screened. In its native Denmark, just 5,474 paid admission, which makes the film a major flop despite its tiny budget. Many have subsequently seen it: 3,747 IMDb users have given Epidemic a 6.2/10 average rating.]

What do you think of Epidemic?

The Element of Crime/Forbrydelsens Element (1984) - Von Trier's ultra-strange debut

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An interesting, weird poster for Lars Von Trier's The Element of Crime

QUICK REVIEW:

A police detective returns to Europe after 13 years in Cairo to investigate a bestial serial killer case. His search, however, turns into an obsessive examination of the suspect Harry Gray.

The Element of Crime is the feature debut of Danish master co-writer-director Lars Von Trier (Breaking the Waves (1996)), written with Niels Vørsel (Europa (1991), co-writer).
The film marks a fascinating and unique highlight for artistic freedom and determination to experiment within Danish film and is visually stunningly beautiful. The plot is too intangible to ever produce any kind of real suspense, and that seems to me the film's loss. - It is pretentious, to some degree, and super-airy. But also artistic, poetic, with magical, fascinating sequences - SPOILER full of dead animals, - and with a final shot of a lemur, also completely unique. It opens up the Europe-trilogy's main theme of a diseased continent in disintegration, following the destruction of 'the great' wars.
The Element of Crime is, due to its deeply committed strangeness, especially a film for cinephiles and Von Trier fans.

Related reviews:

Lars Von Trier:  Nymphomaniac (2013) short version, vol. 1 & vol. 2, or, Lars Von Trier's Suck It Melancholia (2011) - Von Trier's heightened reality doomsday reflections 
Antichrist (2009) - Von Trier's cabin-in-the-woods psycho-horror 
The Boss of It All/Direktøren for det Hele (2006) - Von Trier's hilarious absurd comedy 
Dear Wendy (2005) - Vinterberg and Von Trier's unpopular, gun-themed megaflop (writer)
Dogville (2003) - Von Trier's implacable, truly unique drama  
Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date   
Dancer in the Dark (2000) or, Selma the Immigrant  

Watch a clip of the film with audio from Werner Herzog's Heart of Glass for some reason applied to it here, (the best Youtube can offer presently)

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown (probably a big to huge flop)
[The Element of Crime was released May 14 (Denmark) and runs 103 minutes. It is the first of Von Trier's Europa trilogy, which deals with idealists of different kinds and also comprises Epidemic (1987) and Europa (1991). The sepia-like tone of the film comes from its being filmed almost entirely in sodium light. The film is heavily inspired by the films and style of Russian master filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. 37,743 paid admission to see the film in its native Denmark, which should be regarded as pretty impressive for a debut film as weird as The Element of Crime. The film was released in at least 7 countries up until 1990. - Without financial numbers released, it is impossible to say if it turned profitable, although it looks like a big to huge flop. The film won both the Danish Robert and Bodil awards for Best Danish Film of the Year as well as the Technical Grand Prize in Cannes and several other awards. The Element of Crime is fresh at 77 % with a 6.3 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Element of Crime?