‘You Want to Wake up to Free Yourself of the Image of Europa. But It Is Not Possible’: Lars von Trier's Critique of the European Narrative of Progress in His Europa Trilogy

Abstract

Lars von Trier's Europa trilogy consists of three films [The Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1987) and Europa (1991)] that take as a starting point the idea that Europe is in a state of crisis. Privileging a visual rather than a text-bound dramaturgy, these three films complicate historical representation and chronotopical reality, making it difficult to distinguish the boundaries between past and present. This article discusses the ways these films question the view of history as an additive series of events that mark out precise boundaries between the mistakes of the past and the present historical reality. The trilogy was completed in 1991 and challenged the European nations' optimism of the time for an integrated Europe and a new era of collaboration which could leave behind the historical traumas and the animosities of the past. The Europa trilogy's refusal to portray history as a positive teleological process acquires a new historical significance in light of the contemporary historical circumstances, since the concept of an integrated Europe has been called into question by the current economic crisis, which has revived past historical traumas.

Keywords:

• Europe
• historical traumas
• Lars von Trier
• Europa trilogy
• post-Brechtian cinema

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Lars von Trier and the Zentropa Productions for allowing him to include stills from the films he discusses.