30 years of the Europa
On May 12, 1991 at the Cannes International Film Festival the premiere of Lars von Trier's film "Europa" took place. The film was nominated for the main festival award - Palme d'Or. But the jury of the film festival, chaired by the famous Roman Polanski, awarded the main prize to the film by the Coen brothers "Barton Fink". Lars von Trier, when, during the announcement of the names of the winners, realized that he was left without the Palme d'Or, showed the jury members his middle finger and, slamming the door, left the ceremony. The company of relative "losers" to Trier's film was made, among others, by Krzysztof Kieslowski's "La double vie de VĂ©ronique (The Double Life of VĂ©ronique)".
Meanwhile, the jury of that Cannes Film Festival awarded Lars von Trier as many as three, less significant, prizes: the Jury Prize, the Technical Grand Prix and the Prize for Best Artistic Contribution. By the way, in the jury of that film festival, the Soviet Union was represented by the star of "Little Vera" Natalya Negoda.
Needless to say, in his home country, Denmark, Lars von Trier's film "Europa" received 7 awards from the Danish Film Academy, as well as the Bodil Prize for Best Danish Film.
Reviews of film critics for the film "Europe" were rather controversial. So, Marc Savlov spoke about the film with enthusiasm, writing that "It's a hypnotic film to watch...Zentropa is above all unique in its radical take on the inherent confusion of postwar Europe, offering the viewer a glimpse like none he has had before." (In the US, Lars von Trier's film was titled "Zentropa", so as not to create confusion with Agnieszka Holland's films "Europe, Europe", released a year earlier.)
Bill Weber of the American online publication Slant Magazine spoke very caustically about Trier's painting, concluding his review with the conclusion that in this movie "the German moral tragedy of the Nazi era is obscured by the movie’s ostentatious arsenal of tricks and toys."
A kind of generalizing characterization of the film was given by Roger Ebert, who rated it three stars out of four possible: "The movie is symbolic, although perhaps in a different way for every viewer. I read it as a film about the death throes of Nazism, which is represented by the train, and the moral culpability of Americans and others who turned up too late to save the victims of these trains and the camps where they delivered their doomed human cargo. The train, and the Nazi state, are dead, but like cartoon figures they continue to jerk through their motions; the message from the brain has not reached the body."
Steven Spielberg became a real fan of the film. After watching the film, he immediately offered Lars von Trier the opportunity to work in Hollywood, to which von Trier responded with a polite refusal. By the way, Lars von Trier received an offer to move to America and work in Hollywood several times, but nevertheless he continues to work exclusively in Denmark and has never been to the United States.
The rating of the film "Europa" by ordinary moviegoers is evidenced by the following figures: 61% of users of IMDB and Kinopoisk gave this film ratings from 8 to 10. Taking into account this indicator and the above, the rating of Lars von Trier's film "Europa" according to FilmGourmand was 7,973 thanks to which it took the 743rd Rank in the Golden Thousand.
