Zentropa aka Europa
Netflix description:
Dogme director Lars von Trier’s bizarre yarn revolves around Leopold, a German American who becomes involved in a surreal nightmare in postwar Germany. Leopold’s uncle gets him a job as a sleeping-car conductor with a giant railway complex called Zentropa. On his first day, Katharina, a worker at Zentropa, seduces Leopold. He falls blindly for her, unaware that she’s about to draw him into a maze of intrigue involving pro-Nazi terrorists.
Ebay lister description:
Opening with a hypnotizing image of rolling train tracks and a somber voice-over by Max Von Sydow, ZENTROPA unfolds calculatedly and ambiguously. Von Trier employs a series of ingenious technical tricks, using rear projection as well as cutting between color and black and white, in order to give his film a dazzling visual presentation. The result is a mysterious thriller that will beg for a second viewing once the final credits have rolled.
Europa (retitled Zentropa for the American release) is an hallucinatory Danish film set in postwar Germany. Jean-Marc Barr plays a young German who aspires for a job as a street conductor. But this is no mere “Joe Job;” Barr’s adventures on the line are designed as a metaphor for the emergence of the “New Europe” following the war. Barbara Sukowa costars as the daughter of a railroad magnate–and possible Nazi sympathizer. Many of the special-effects sequences are computer enhanced, but even the “live” scenes have an unsettling, surreal quality to them (colors changing abruptly, backgrounds shifting without warning, etc.) This experimental film left some viewers confused, which may be why English-language prints of Zentropa are narrated by Max Von Sydow.
This is an independent movie, with great cinematography. Certainly worth a watch.
Unfortunately, it’s not yet available on DVD in the USA, but VHS copies can be found in the foreign section of video stores.