Post by captainofbeef on Sept 18, 2008 7:36:32 GMT -5
"You will now listen to my voice . . . On the count of ten you will be in Europa . . ." So begins Max von Sydow's opening narration to Lars von Trier’s hypnotic Europa (known in the U.S. as Zentropa), a fever dream in which American pacifist Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr) stumbles into a job as a sleeping-car conductor for the Zentropa railways in a Kafkaesque 1945 postwar Frankfurt. With its gorgeous black-and-white and color imagery and meticulously recreated (if then nightmarishly deconstructed) costumes and sets, Europa is one of the great Danish filmmaker’s weirdest and most wonderful works, a runaway train ride to an oddly futuristic past.
Special Features
* - New, restored high-definition digital transfer
* - Audio commentary featuring director Lars von Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen (in Danish, with English subtitles)
* - The Making of “Europa” (1991), a documentary following the film from storyboarding to production
* - Trier’s Element (1991), a documentary featuring an interview with von Trier, and footage from the set and Europa’s Cannes premiere and press conference
* - Anecdotes from Europa (2005), a short documentary featuring interviews with film historian Peter Schepelern, actor Jean-Marc Barr, producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen, assistant director Tómas Gislason, co-writer Niels Vørsel, and prop master Peter Grant
* - 2005 interviews with cinematographer Henning Bendtsen, composer Joachim Holbek, costume designer Manon Rasmussen, film-school teacher Mogens Rukov, editor/director Tómas Gislason, producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen, art director Peter Grant, actor Michael Simpson, production manager Per Arman, actor Ole Ernst
* - A conversation with Lars von Trier from 2005, in which the director speaks about the "Europa" trilogy
* - Europa—The Faecal Location (2005), a short film by Gislason
* - New and improved English subtitle translation
* - PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Howard Hampton
