Zentropa (1992) is the story of a young German-American man who finds himself trapped in the middle of a terrorist plot in post-World War II Germany. The cast includes: Jean-Marc Barr (as Leopold Kessler), Barbara Sukowa (as Katharina Hartmann), Udo Kier (as Lawrence Hartmann), Ernst-Hugo Jaregard (Uncle Kessler), Jørgen Reenberg (Max Hartmann), and Eddie Constantine (Colonel Harris). The narrator’s voice is that of Max von Sydow.
The screenplay, entitled Europa, was written by Lars Von Trier and Niel Vørsel. The music was composed by Joakim Holbek. Photography was by Henning Bendtsen, Jean-Paul Meurise, and Edward Klosinsky. The film was produced by Peter Aaalbaek Jensen and Bo Christensen, and directed by Lars Von Trier.
As the film begins, the camera looks down at a set of railroad tracks. The camera advances along the tracks, and the voice of Max von Sydow says hypnotically, “You will now listen to my voice. My voice will help you, and guide you still deeper into Europa…”
Rain is falling at night, and a young man stands behind a fence. He is carrying a suitcase, and wearing a hat and a trenchcoat. He starts walking across a railyard. He has been traveling by train from Bremerhaven, and before that, by ship from New York.
It is Germany, 1945. The war has just ended. Leopold Kessler is a young German-American who had been a pacifist during the war. He has emigrated from America, because he wants to take part in helping to heal the devastation of post-war Germany.
Leo’s uncle has received a letter from his father, asking him to help Leo to find a job. Leo’s uncle is a sleeping-car conductor on the railway. Uncle Kessler has found Leo a job as a sleeping-car conductor for the Zentropa Company.
Leo starts his training as a sleeping-car conductor. He meets Katharina Hartmann, a young woman whose father is the owner of the Zentropa Company. She asks him why he is in Germany, because it is unusual for an American to have a civilian job in post-war Germany. He says that he is there because he wants to contribute to making the world a better place.
Leo is an idealist. He wants to help people, and to relieve suffering. He is kind to the people he meets. But he is also naïve, and he unwittingly lets himself be used by others for their own selfish purposes.
He is invited to dinner at the home of the Hartmann family. Another guest at the Hartmann home is Colonel Alexander Harris, an American who is an old friend of Max Hartmann, Katharina's father. Alex and Max had become friends before the war.
Colonel Harris asks Leo to continue his job on the railway, and to obtain information about the “werewolves,” a group of pro-Nazi sympathizers who have committed acts of sabotage. The “werewolves” have also killed German diplomats who have cooperated with the Allies. Harris offers Leo a pistol for self-protection, but Leo refuses it.
Katharina is attracted to Leo. She flirts with him, and seduces him. She seems to be disillusioned with the world, and is thus attracted to Leo’s idealism. She has resigned herself to the strife that has torn apart German society. Her world has fallen apart. She no longer seems to feel a moral commitment to anything.
Her father, Max Hartmann, suffers an inner sense of guilt because of his previous complicity with the Nazi regime. As owner of the railway company, he was responsible for the operation of the Zentropa railway during the war years. The Zentropa railway had been used to transport Jews to the concentration camps.
Now, Max Hartmann has received threatening letters from the “werewolves” because of his postwar cooperation with the Americans. His friend, Colonel Harris, wants to protect him. Max’s position as a leader in a major company makes him an important figure for the postwar reconstruction of Germany.
But Max is overcome by guilt for having accepted the Nazi regime, and he commits suicide by slashing his wrists in the bathtub. The family is alerted to the suicide when the water in the bathtub overflows and seeps under the door of the bathroom.
Max Hartmann’s body is transported in a coffin on a train to Darmstadt. Leo comforts Katharina, who admits to him that she is a former werewolf. Leo attends Max Hartmann's funeral, but the American military refuses to allow the ceremony to continue because there is an ordinance against public gatherings.
Leo and Kate get married. They travel by train, and are assigned to the Hartmann family’s private compartment. He is suddenly afraid, because he does not know where his journey will end.
He realizes that the Hartmann family has represented an attitude of expediency and opportunism in its wartime collaboration with the Nazis and in its postwar collaboration with the Americans. He sees that he must avoid complicity with immorality, and that he has a need for moral commitment.
Kate’s brother, Lawrence, is murdered by the “werewolves” for refusing to cooperate with them. Kate is taken as a hostage, and a werewolf tells Leo that the Bremen Express has to be shut down that night. A bomb will be exploded on the train while it crosses the Neuwied Bridge. Leo will be the sleeping-car conductor on the train.
As the train leaves the station, Colonel Harris comes aboard. He asks Leo for information about the plots of the “werewolves.” Leo does not tell him that a bomb is aboard the train.
Meanwhile, the train travels toward Bremen, and Leo has to face an inspector who is giving him an examination to determine whether he can become a licensed conductor. When the train stops at a station, Leo uses the opportunity to place the bomb under the sleeping-car, because he has been told by the “werewolves” that Kate will be killed if he does not cooperate.
The train continues along the route, and Leo jumps from the train as it is nearing a bridge. He lays for a moment on the soft earth of the railbed, looking up at the stars. But then he realizes that he must help the passengers who are in danger. He runs after the train, and jumps back on it, as the train is crossing the bridge.
He shuts off the detonator of the bomb. The werewolf leader who had threatened him is captured by the military police, and Kate is rescued. When Leo sees Kate, however, she is handcuffed. Kate has been arrested for being a werewolf.
Colonel Harris has discovered that she had written the anonymous threatening letters to her father, which had contributed to his suicide. Leo realizes that Katharina had used him to try to implement her plans to blow up the train.
Leo had tried to remain neutral in the struggle between the werewolves and the American military, but he sees that both sides have been manipulating him. In frustration, he pulls the lever which triggers an emergency brake that stops the train. By coincidence, the train comes to a stop on the Neuwied Bridge.
Moments later, the train starts moving again, but the bomb under the train explodes.The train suddenly falls from the bridge into the river, and the compartments of the train are flooded. Leo starts to drown, as the voice of Max von Sydow says, “You are in a train in Germany. Now the train is sinking. You will drown. On the count of ten, you will be dead. One, two, three, four…”
As the film ends, the camera shows Leo’s body floating through the compartment of the train, and out through a door, into the river. The river sweeps his body downstream, to the ocean that mirrors the sky.
Zentropa is a tour-de-force of technical filmmaking. Von Trier uses a dazzling array of camera angles, and amazing interpositions of images to convey the vortex of experience encountered in a world where life has been torn apart. The array of images reflects the sense of disorientation encountered in a society which has been utterly devastated.
The hypnotic narration of the film at regular intervals by the voice of Max von Sydow draws us onward into a world beyond the limits of time or history. The train is an important symbol in the film, and represents both the passage of time and our progress toward destiny.
Human progress can move forward or backward. The film portrays the conflict between accepting or resisting the presence of evil, and emphasizes the importance of moral commitment.