Europa

Set in Germany shortly after the end of the Second World War, Europa follows Leopold Kessler, a young American of German descent who arrives in the occupied country intending to help with its reconstruction. His uncle, who works for a railway company, gets him a job as a sleeping car conductor, and Leopold believes he can stay neutral while doing something useful for a damaged nation. That hope does not hold. The divided, occupied territory pulls him into its conflicts, and he becomes caught between the different forces competing for control while his personal life becomes entangled with the Hartmann family, who own the railway line.

Lars von Trier directed and co-wrote the film with Niels Vørsel. It is the second of the seventeen features he has directed, arriving between Epidemic and The Kingdom, and it was produced by Bo Christensen and Peter Aalbæk Jensen. Jean-Marc Barr plays Leopold, with Barbara Sukowa as Katharina Hartmann, Udo Kier as Lawrence Hartmann, Ernst-Hugo Järegård as Uncle Kessler and Jørgen Reenberg as Max Hartmann among a credited cast of thirty. The production, mounted across several European countries, carried a budget of around 28 million dollars but returned only about 1 million dollars worldwide.

On IMDb the film holds 7.5 out of 10 from roughly 25,000 votes, and on TMDB it has 7.3 out of 10 from a much smaller base of 372 votes. A critics' rating of 7.8 out of 10 from 16 reviews places it slightly above both audience scores.