Well… as much as I love Bjork (and Matthew Barney)… I might have to rethink that rule.  Europa, a story about an American that takes a job as a train conductor in Post World War II Germany, is… shall we say ‘odd’.  The film is slow, pedestrian in dialogue and simple in plot.  Actually kind of ridiculous in plot.  A blackmail bomb plot juxtaposed with a promotion exam?  I get it – the notion of extremes of national identity, but it comes off as plodding and clumsy. 

Von Trier’s use of splitting foreground and background, and black and white and color, seems strained at best and arbitrary at worst.  I am left wondering why this story had to be told.  And why did it have to be told in this way?  I am sure there are lessons and insights to be mined in an exploration of a nation trying to find its footing again after a devastating war.  But I am not sure that ‘Europa’ succeeds in finding anything useful to say or saying it in a compelling way.