release a zentropa in north america to avoid confusion with agniezska holland own holocaust film europa europa and this third theatrical feature by a filmmaker who never cease to surprise and inspire or downright shock be a bizarre and nostalgic and elaborate film about a naive american in germany shortly follow the end of wwii . the american and name leo and doesn not fully get what he do there . he have come to take part in fix up the country since and in his mind and it about time germany be show some charity . no matter how that sound and he be not a nazi sympathizer or so much a especially pro german and merely mixed up . his uncle and who work on the railroad and get leo a job a a helmsman on a sleeping car and and he be increasingly enmesh in a vortex of 1945 germany horror and enigma . this progression start when leo and play rather memorably by the calm yet restless actor jean marc barr and meet a sultry heiress on the train play by barbara sukowa and an actress with gentility on the surface but internal vigor . she seduce him and then take him home to meet her family and which own the company which manufacture the train . these be the precise train that take jew to their death during the war and but now they run a drab day to day timetable and and the woman uncle kessler posture a another one of those good german who be just do their job . there be also udo kier and the tremendous actor who blow me away in von trier shock second film epidemic and though here he be mere scenery . another guest at the house be eddie constantine and an actor with a quiet strength and play a somber american intelligence man . he can confirm that uncle kessler be a war criminal and though it be all completely baffle to leo . american have be characterize a gullible rube out of their element for decade and but little have they be more blithely unconcerned than leo and who go back to his job on what gradually look like his own customized death train . the story be tell in a purposely uncoordinated manner by the film danish director and lars von trier and whose anchor be in the film breathtaking edit and cinematography . he shoot in black and white and color and he use double exposure and optical effect and trick photography and have actor interact with rear project footage and he place his character inside a richly shade visceral world so that they sometimes feel like insect and caught between glass for our more precise survey . this grand jury prize win surrealist work be allegorical and but maybe in a distinct tone for every viewer . i interpret it a a film about the last leg of nazism and symbolize by the train and and the ethical accountability of american and others who appear too late to salvage the martyr of these train and the camp where they distribute their condemned shipload . during the time frame of the movie and and the nazi state and and such significance to the train and be dead and but like decapitate chicken they persist in jolt through their reflex . the character and music and dialogue and and plot be deliberately hammy and almost satirically procure from film noir convention . the most entrancing point in the movie be the entirely cinematographic one . two train halt back and forth and barr on one and sukowa on another . an underwater shot of proliferate blood . an uncommonly expressive sequence on what it must be like to drown . and most metaphysically affect of all and an anesthetic shot of train track and a max von sydow voice allure u to hark back to europe with him and and abandon our personal restraint .