On Getting Old -- 22

We watched a DVD the other night. The movie “Europa” released as “Zentropa” in 1991 won the Prix du Jury at Cannes Film Festival. The Danish director, Lars Von Trier, issued this movie as the final one in his Europa Trilogy – the first in 1984, “The Element of Crime” won a technical award at the Cannes that year. It was followed by “Epidemic” [1987].

We knew we were in for an unusual experience with “Europa”. The opening scene was that of railroad tracks viewed in the headlight of a fast moving train. The voice over was Max Von Sydow slowly counting and claiming “ …on the count of ten you will be in Europa.”

The movie switched from black and white to color. Some scenes were a composite of black and white with color in the background. Leopold Kessler, a young American, returns to post-war Germany [1945] seeking a job from his uncle, a conductor for the Zentropa Rail Line.

The protagonist, Leopold, tries to remain neutral in the dealings with passengers. He is persuaded to attend a party hosted by the owner of the railway and promptly falls in love with the owner’s daughter, Katharina Hartmann.

Kessler’s work on the train brings him in contact with “wehrwolves”.
[An aside—after watching the movie we researched the German werewolf and found they were a last ditch guerrilla organization of irregular German partisans.] This group tricked and coerced Kessler who tried to remain a ‘non-involved’ pacifist.

The journey was a surrealistic dream-like series of events. A most vivid scene involved a Jewish family returning from England to the rural town in Germany they called home. The wife does not want to go back, and the husband pleads with Leo to tell his wife everything is as it was in pre-war Germany. The train pulls away from the station with the family huddled together on a war devastated landscape.

The visions in this movie were haunting like a Kafka induced dream.

Today’s candy was twofold. First we watched a thought provoking movie – secondly, we learned something totally unknown. That of the resistance movement in Germany called the werewolves. So strange that I have lived nearly seventy years, grew up during the war years and never, ever heard the mention of this resistance movement.

Ciao