It was a couple years ago when I first saw Europa alone past midnight but the blurring tracks and Sydow’s opening words still echo through my head at the very mention of this film; it has a way of lulling you into the railways shortly thereafter. But this is no hook. The visual constructions (and I believe that’s the way to put it) and color disparities are not unlike Hannah Hoch’s famous Kitchen Knife collage. A harrowing work laden with one arresting scene after another, this is a postwar Germany previously unimagined. Even considering a distinctive career marked by a number of risks, this is arguably one of Trier’s most radical pieces. Like a recurring dream, Europa is a hard one to shake.