Zentropa

Zentropa is a feature-length experimental film, Lars von Trier's nightmarish vision of Germany just after World War II has the dislocating quality of that limbo between sleep and waking. Barr plays a pacifist American working as a sleeping-car conductor who becomes involved in postwar sabotage. But the story (paced with great deliberation) and the main character (a cipher) are somewhat incidental to Von Trier's vision and poetry of ruin, which blends black and white spookily with color while juxtaposing imagery in completely unexpected ways. Unfortunately, the enveloping density of that imagery is sometimes lost on the video screen. B+