Lars von Trier

Von Trier first established his name as a filmmaker with a trilogy of films dealing with a dark and traumatised Europe: The Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1987) and Europa (Zentropa, 1991). However, it was his second television outing, The Kingdom (1994) co-directed by Morten Amfred, that brought him public acclaim, and helped to define a style which would be formalised as Dogme 95—a rigorously spare manifesto for film production. Dogme was a call for a more simple form of filmmaking, the use of hand-held cameras and available light, of non-generic plotting and an uncredited director. This aesthetic regime provided the background for his second trilogy, Breaking the Waves (1996), The Idiots (1998) and Dancer in the Dark (2000). These films, contained in what he calls the «Golden Heart Trilogy» inspired by a children’s book, are stories of the surrender and sanctification of women.

◊  Europa  –  Storyline

«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.

Get yourselves carried away with Max von Sydow‘s mellow voice in the intro from Joachim Holbeck’s soundtrack to  Europa  (1991)

♦→  Dancer in the Dark    ⇓  [2000]

♦  Bjork – I’ve seen it all  ↓

I’ve seen it all, I have seen the trees,
I’ve seen the willow leaves dancing in the breeze
I’ve seen a man killed by his best friend,
And lives that were over before they were spent.
I’ve seen what I was – I know what I’ll be
I’ve seen it all – there is no more to see!

You haven’t seen elephants, kings or Peru!
I’m happy to say I had better to do
What about China? Have you seen the Great Wall?
All walls are great, if the roof doesn’t fall!

And the man you will marry?
The home you will share?
To be honest, I really don’t care…

You’ve never been to Niagara Falls?
I have seen water, its water, that’s all…
The Eiffel Tower, the Empire State?
My pulse was as high on my very first date!
Your grandson’s hand as he plays with your hair?
To be honest, I really don’t care…

I’ve seen it all, I’ve seen the dark
I’ve seen the brightness in one little spark.
I’ve seen what I chose and I’ve seen what I need,
And that is enough, to want more would be greed.
I’ve seen what I was and I know what I’ll be
I’ve seen it all – there is no more to see!

You’ve seen it all and all you have seen
You can always review on your own little screen
The light and the dark, the big and the small
Just keep in mind – you need no more at all
You’ve seen what you were and know what you’ll be
You’ve seen it all – there is no more to see!

 ♦  Behind the Scenes:  ⇓  ‘Dancer in the Dark’

◊   Melancholia  ↓

Prelude to Richard Wagner’s opera  ⇓  Tristan und Isolde