MOVIE · 1991
Europa
DramaThriller113 min
Just after World War II, Jean-Marc Barr is Leopold Kessler, an American pacifist who takes a railway job in Germany and quickly learns that even routine work carries political danger. In postwar Frankfurt, his position as a sleeping-car conductor leaves him exposed to competing loyalties and people eager to use his neutrality for their own ends, with Barbara Sukowa and Ernst-Hugo Jaregard among the figures pulling him deeper into the tension around the line. Lars von Trier shapes Leopold’s descent through a damaged Europe with stark black-and-white imagery, sudden washes of color, and an opening narration from Max von Sydow that gives the film its eerie, hypnotic frame.
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