Zentropa

Starring:Jean-Marc Barr, Eddie Constantine, JÃ¡nos HerskÃ³, CÃ¦cilia Holbek Trier, Henning Jensen, Ernst-Hugo JÃ¤regÃ¥rd, Udo Kier, Dietrich Kuhlbrodt, Erik MÃ¸rk, Erno MÃ¼ller, Holger Perfort, Benny Poulsen, Hardy Rafn, JÃ¸rgen Reenberg, Michael Phillip Simpson, Barbara Sukowa, Talila, Anne Werner Thomsen, Max von Sydow
Studio: Walt Disney Video
Product Type: DVD

Product Description

PLOT SUMMARY: An American of German descent arrives in post-war Germany 1945. His uncle gets him a job on the Zentropa train line as a sleeping car conductor. The American's wish is to be neutral to the ongoing purges of loyalists by the Allied forces and do what he can to help a hurting country, but he finds himself being used by both the Americans and the influential family that owns the railroad. After falling in love with the railroad magnate's daughter, he finds that he can't remain neutral and must make some difficult choices. [ISDB - Ed Sutton] This officially licensed release from South Korea has region 3 printed on the package but is actually NTSC Region 0 (viewable in ALL regions).

Customer Reviews:

One of the best films.......2007-01-12

von Trier managed with film what Mankell has managed with mystery writing: portrayal of the psycho-social ills of society. See also 'Breaking the Waves', recommended to me by a Danish friend. In Zentropa the scene where our anti-hero overreacts (symbolically) with typically American anger to German formality and correctness is memorable. The movie ends with the time of the Werewolves.

Without a doubt my choice for 'best movie of the 1990s'.......2006-10-29

Having spent some time in Germany and having had some experiences on German trains I was eager to see this film when it first came out at the movies. The experience was breathtaking to say the least. When I came out of the movie theatre it was as if I had not truly seen film until that day. This movie is a surrealist visual and auditory masterpiece, but it's not just an art film - it works on many levels and the movie's fast pace and clear storyline will appeal to the casual viewer as well as the connoisseur of art in film.

In my view this is the best film of the 1990s and I think it's a crime that this great film is not available in a region 1 DVD with all the trimmings (director's commentary, actor's commentary, deleted scenes, etc.)

It says a lot about the US DVD industry when a great classic like this cannot make it to DVD yet appalling trash like the Scary Movie series have multiple releases, special editions etc.

cinematic time capsule.......2006-02-28

As a young boy at the age of 7 my mother took me to Germany in the early 1950s. Although to young to be aware of the political climate of post war germany, I do recall the plight of the average German in their efforts to rebuild. German was learned quickly by this american born boy who played in the ruins of bombed out buildings with his German peers. To me the director of this movie has encapsulated (through the lighting,use of black and white and other cinematic tricks)a sense of the time period involved. This is why I had to own Zentropa. Lars Von Trier is able to move the viewer past the story line (which is based more in surrealism than any historic event)to a different time period the way a painter can move a viewer with his skillful brush strokes beyond a two dimensional painting.

Inheritance (Arvet) (Arven) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Sweden ]

Average customer rating:

The Inheritance

Inheritance (Arvet) (Arven) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Sweden ]
Director: Per Fly
Manufacturer: Zentropa Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000A0W82S

Product Description

Sweden released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. Languages: o Danish (subtitles) o English (subtitles) o Norwegian (subtitles) o Swedish (subtitles) o Danish (Dolby Digital 5.1) Synopsis: A man is torn between love, family, and a responsibility he does not want in this drama. Christoffer (Ulrich Thomsen) used to work for his family's steel company, but when the stress of the job began taking a serious toll on his health, he left the firm and now happily runs a restaurant in Stockholm and is married to Maria (Lisa Werlinder), a lovely and promising stage actress. At the urging of his father, Christoffer flies to Denmark for a family visit, only to discover upon arrival that his dad has just killed himself. Christoffer quickly discovers why: the steel business is on the verge of collapse and his mother (Ghita Nørby) urges him to take over rather than let his brother-in-law Ulrik (Lars Brygmann) assume control. Christoffer reluctantly agrees, but before long, his decision begins to drive a wedge between himself and Maria, while his difficulty in reviving the failing business forces him to deal honestly with his employees in a manner he's not accustomed to, as well as dealing with the uncomfortable points of corporate power. Arven (aka The Inheritance) is the second part of a trilogy by director Per Fly on the three primary social classes, following his 2000 debut Bænken. Special Features: o Behind the scenes footage o Commentary o Deleted Scenes o Featurette o Interactive Menu o Music Video o Scene Access o Trailer(s)

Customer Reviews:

The Inheritance.......2006-06-27

This is one of the most powerful movies I have seen in a long time. It has far more depth than anything I've recently seen out of Hollywood. Per Fly, the Danish writer and director, is clearly doing something right that others should pay attention to. This is how movies should be, so full and complete that you believe you are watching real life unfold, not some make believe story from a bored script writer. I'm determined to find and view the other films of Per Fly.

Lars Von Trier Europe Trilogy Boxset [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Netherlands ]

Average customer rating:

Lars Von Trier Europe Trilogy Boxset [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Netherlands ]

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Product Features:

***NON-USA FORMAT - WILL NOT PLAY ON A STANDARD USA DVD PLAYER***
Multi-DVD Set
Cast/Crew Interview(s)
Behind the scenes
Alternative Footage

ASIN: B000CR1DJS

Product Description

Netherlands released, PAL/Region 2 4-DVD Set: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1 English Dolby Digital 2.0 Danish Dolby Digital 2.0 German Dolby Digital 2.0 Dutch Subtitles French Subtitles Synopsis: Featuring 'Element Of Crime', Danish director Lars von Trier's debut feature film, also his first English-language effort, an extremely hypnotic, moody thriller. The story opens in the desert of Egypt, where police detective Leopold Fisher (Michael Elphick) is hypnotized and asked to recount the recent events of his life. It seems that Fisher has been called back to a small town where he has previously spent time in order to investigate the brutal murders of several little girls who sell lottery tickets. He reunites with his mentor, Osborne (Esmond Night), the writer of a controversial book entitled THE ELEMENT OF CRIME, in which he recommends that investigators adopt the point of view of killers in order to better predict subsequent tragedies. When Fisher meets Kim (Meme Lei), a beautiful young woman, the pair embarks on a journey that begins to blur the line between Fisher's simulated killer and the real thing. Von Trier's film is a bold exercise in style, using hypnotism to support the slowly unfolding story. Visually, he soaks the film in a sepia tone, incorporating double exposures and super-8 footage to add even more stylish effect. The result is a deeply puzzling murder mystery that stands as an extremely bold directorial debut. Plus 'Epidemic' and 'Europa'. Extras: Box Set Alternative Footage Behind the scenes Biographies Cast/Crew Interview(s) Filmographies Multi-DVD Set Trailer(s)

Chop Chop (Fukssvansen) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Denmark ]

Average customer rating:

Chop Chop (Fukssvansen) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Denmark ]
Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Manufacturer: Zentropa
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000BMTAMG

Product Description

Denmark released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. Languages: o English (subtitles) o Norwegian (subtitles) o Danish (Dolby Digital 5.1) Synopsis: Coal black farce plays like a cross between "Dumb & Dumber", "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and "Mifune". The story of two dimwitted brothers and their troubles with a corpse, a nosy neighbor and a pregnant waitress is pretty thin, but director Oplev tries to compensate with off-the-wall gags and gross-out humor, which sometimes work, sometimes doesn´t. The cast is game, and obviously has a whale of a time, and there are a couple of genuine belly-laughs. Special Features: o Cast/Crew Interview(s) o Interactive Menu o Scene Access o Teaser(s) o Trailer(s)

Average customer rating:

Hypnotic viewing

Lars Von Trier Europe Trilogy Boxset [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Netherlands ]
Director: Lars von Trier
Manufacturer: A-Film
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000EHMG0Q

Product Description

Netherlands released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. Language Options: Danish (Dolby Digital 2.0) Dutch (Subtitles) English (Dolby Digital 5.1) English (Dolby Digital 2.0) French (Subtitles) German (Dolby Digital 2.0) Synopsis: Featuring 'Element Of Crime', Danish director Lars von Trier's debut feature film, also his first English-language effort, an extremely hypnotic, moody thriller. The story opens in the desert of Egypt, where police detective Leopold Fisher (Michael Elphick) is hypnotized and asked to recount the recent events of his life. It seems that Fisher has been called back to a small town where he has previously spent time in order to investigate the brutal murders of several little girls who sell lottery tickets. He reunites with his mentor, Osborne (Esmond Night), the writer of a controversial book entitled THE ELEMENT OF CRIME, in which he recommends that investigators adopt the point of view of killers in order to better predict subsequent tragedies. When Fisher meets Kim (Meme Lei), a beautiful young woman, the pair embarks on a journey that begins to blur the line between Fisher's simulated killer and the real thing. Von Trier's film is a bold exercise in style, using hypnotism to support the slowly unfolding story. Visually, he soaks the film in a sepia tone, incorporating double exposures and super-8 footage to add even more stylish effect. The result is a deeply puzzling murder mystery that stands as an extremely bold directorial debut. Plus 'Epidemic' and 'Europa'. Special Features: Alternative Footage Behind the scenes Biographies Box Set Cast/Crew Interview(s) Filmographies Multi-DVD Set Trailer(s)

Customer Reviews:

Hypnotic viewing.......2006-07-20

Seen together, Lars Von Trier's Europa trilogy isn't exactly a profound experience, but it does underline the fact that even when he's boring he's never dull. On one level, none of them should work and none of them do, yet on another there's an audacity to them that engages far more than the subject matter: at times, the hypnotic execution is more than enough to compensate for the narrative confusion. Indeed, the whole trilogy seems to be driven by dreams and trances. Element of Crime is a tale emotionlessly told by a detective under hypnosis, his lack of passion in his voice-over often mirrored by the artificiality of the performances and the dreamlike imagery of a burned out, waterlogged Europe that feels like one of the fevered headaches that consume him as he becomes the monster he is supposedly tracing down. Epidemic even ends with an apocalyptic hypnotic trance as the parasitic pair of Von Trier and his insufferably smug screenwriter Niels Vorsel, who have been feeding on the pain and misery of others for inspiration for a script, even turning a painful memory from Udo Kier into a scene in their proposed film, ultimately reap what they sow. A mixture of the odd great image (Von Trier's doctor hanging from a rope with a Red Cross flag attached) and the mundane, it's an apt reminder of just how similar the act of artistic creation can be to a contagious disease that wounds those who come into its orbit.

Europa, aka Zentropa, opens with Max Von Sydow's unseen narrator hypnotising the audience to bring them into the film. The film itself is the closest to a mainstream narrative of the trilogy, but even here Von Trier is constantly undercutting his noirish plot - an idealistic American becomes a pawn in the amoral politics of post-War Germany still plagued by the Nazi `Werwolf' resistance movement - with both strikingly expressionistic imagery (not least an audacious use of backprojected images) and that trademark fevered confusion until mindless destruction seems the only release. Of the three, this is the most visually audacious, with a superb use of black and white scope imagery that helps compensate for the awful performances by Jean Marc-Barr and Barbara Sukowa (who once again proves that she may be able to speak English and German but she can't act in either of them). Still, the presence of Ernst-Hugo Jaregard (so wonderful in The Kingdom) ensures that not all the cast are carved from wood.

Full marks for the excellent presentation - not only is Europa/Zentropa finally presented in 2.35:1 (the previous issue from Tartan was cropped to 1.85:1) but there are a huge number of interviews and documentaries spread over the three discs and the bonus fourth disc telling you everything you could want to know and more (sadly at least one doc is not subtitled in English). As well as trailers (including additional trailers for all Von Trier's films to date) and audio commentaries, there are two interesting Easter Eggs - Von Trier's graduation film Images of Relief (on Epidemic) and the short film Nocturne on Element of Crime.

Average customer rating:

Zentropa
Unjustly Neglected Masterpiece
Brilliant Artistic and Enigmatic Tale of a Broken Europe...
Hypnotic
TOO CONVOLUTED TO ENTHRALL, BUT TOO BEAUTIFUL TO IGNORE

Zentropa
Starring: Jean-Marc Barr , Eddie Constantine , János Herskó , Cæcilia Holbek Trier , and Henning Jensen
Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

The Element of Crime - Criterion Collection
Epidemic
Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven
The Merchant of Four Seasons
Closely Watched Trains - Criterion Collection

ASIN: B00008978H
Release Date: 2003-04-08

Description

Praised as one of the top films of the year, ZENTROPA is an erotic, passionate thriller delivering nonstop, suspense-filled excitement. In this Hitchcock-like tale, Leo Kessler, an American visiting devastated postwar Germany, gets seduced by a beautiful woman and suddenly finds himself caught in a never-ending web of mystery and intrigue. Leo's nightmarish journey takes him through a hypnotizing maze of romance, passion, and betrayal -- leading to acts of terrorism, and finally, murder. With its many plot twists and heart-stopping surprises, this riveting, seductive thriller is sure to entertain from beginning to end.

Customer Reviews:

Zentropa.......2005-01-15

The first film from Lars Von Trier's "Europa" trilogy that I have seen. It was a very intriguing film and definitely bears similarities with Von Trier's later films, but is SO much different. It is so stylized and well shot and so glossy and, dare I say, very Hollywood of him. Whereas, his new films are shot on DV and look very rough. I prefer the new way, haha, but this was still a very good film. It lacks the emotion of Von Trier's newer stuff, though, which was sad. But I really liked it, reguardless.

Unjustly Neglected Masterpiece.......2004-12-31

Zentropa is one of those rare films of which it truly can be said: it's unlike any movie you will see. It's a bloody shame this is not currently available as this is one of those films that deserves a much wider audience. As a personal aside, everyone I've shared this film with - and what a widely disparate assortment of folk that is - has been astonished by it. von Triers pays homage to the great expressionist filmmakers who went before him and he does them proud.

von Triers realizes the medium of film and applies the qualities of a true gesumkunstwerk - every element, from script to lighting, to sounds to visual images and beyond has been carefully, masterfully calculated for its total effect. The entire movie is not unlike a trip and the ultimate destination of Zentropa is both expected and mindbogglingly shocking.

Let's hope Zentropa gets put back out soon for re-release on DVD - maybe with some extras from von Triers.

Brilliant Artistic and Enigmatic Tale of a Broken Europe..........2004-10-08

The voice of Max von Sydow hypnotizes the audience by stating, "You will now listen to my voice..." as he continuous to count to ten, which pulls the viewer into a nightmarish dream. Simultaneously the opening shot of railroad tracks is flashing by, which visually puts the viewer in a trance as the screen turns black. This beginning incites the audience participation as the film definitely requires a high level of cognitive participation, unlike most films made where the story is driven by the scripted dialogue. Zentropa becomes a visual and aural journey that mesmerizes the audience in a highly artistic manner.

Comparisons have been made with David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977), Hitchcock's Notorious (1946), and the director Wim Wender's cinematic creations. Despite the previous comparisons, Lars von Trier creates a unique cinematic experience that could be compared to an artistic and political journey into the aftermath of World War II. Cities lay in ruin and people suffer from starvation as the artery, the railroads of Zentropa, of the recovering Europa continues its exploitation of the people as it carted off millions to a certain death in the Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau during the war. This creates a tense Machiavellian atmosphere where fear, paranoia, and anxiety have a firm grip of the people. This causes most people to alienate themselves from society.

The cinematic journey begins with German-American Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr) who departs United States after the end of World War II for Germany. When Leopold arrives to the shattered Germany he is greeted by Uncle Kessler (Ernst-Hugo Järegård) who gets him a job as a train conductor on one of the luxurious sleeping-cars of Zentropa. Through work Leopold meet Katharina Hartmann (Barbara Sukowa), the daughter of the owner of Zentropa, with whom he falls in love. However, Leopold's desire for Katharina drags him into a dangerous affair of terrorism, politics, friendship, and murder.

The pacifist Leopold tries to balance his life through abstention of politics, avoidance, not choosing sides, and minding his own business, which is also suggested by his Uncle Kessler. However, no matter how hard Leopold tries to follow his own policy he is forced into situations where he must choose a side as it would otherwise have a catastrophic affect on the people for which he cares. Eventually Leopold finds out the hard way that choices must be made based on his own conscious.

Lars von Trier plays with the visuals throughout the film as a painter would with a new innovative color that would revolutionize art forms. The film is shot in black and white with occasional insertions of color, which enhances the cinematic importance of moment. Von Trier also uses trick photography and double exposures in order to artistically magnify the shot, which creates personalized imprints in the audience's cinematic experience. Ultimately, von Trier pushes the envelop as his message is decoded through his brilliant enigmatic tale of a broken Europe where unity is the sole answer for the continent.

Hypnotic.......2004-07-30

Surely one of the GREATEST directors of all time, this is his masterpiece. Armed with the most hypnotic narration I've ever heard & an extraordinarily abstract form, the story is constantly propelled forward by Max Von Sydow's unmistakable voice. Along with DANCER IN THE DARK, DOGVILLE & BREAKING THE WAVES, ZENTROPA is an unforgettable journey. Please plead with this film's distributor to give it the beautiful widescreen DVD release it deserves.....

TOO CONVOLUTED TO ENTHRALL, BUT TOO BEAUTIFUL TO IGNORE.......2004-07-18

In his typical scattered narrative, von Trier crafts a hypnotic tale of an American in the post-WWII rubble of Germany, as he gets entangled with a stunning local woman. Problem is, the woman is revealed to have been a dangerous operative during the war with far-from-simple roots.

Sounds like a fairly comprehensible theme to wrap a thriller around, but no, not under the sly lens of von Trier! His screenplay copiously employs his characteristic symbolism, effortlessly morphing between black & white and technicolor, using double-exposures, backprojections, and some fascinating trick photography such as superimpositions.

The resulting murky, obscure atmosphere of psychological disorientation may lead a casual viewer to much the same frustrations as the film's protagonist -- of never quite finding a footing in the surrealistic, trancy goings-on.

But if you prefer ambitious enigmas to lacklustre boxoffice hits, then give this truly challenging film a chance.

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