Dancer in the Dark Directed by: Lars Von Trier Selma lives in upper state Washington where she and her son live in a trailer house in a wooded area close to the machine shop where Selma works at. She's slowly going blind when the film starts, and her sight only gets worse throughout the film. She has a genetic disease that causes the blindness, and unless her son Sammy (Vincent Paterson) undergoes an expensive treatment, he too will go blind. Selma has been saving her money from the factory job, as well as holding a job on the side placing bobby pins into cardboard holders. She also has found time to play the lead in a local production of The Sound of Music. She's got the singing down, but she's having problem dancing on the fairly small stage with her bad vision. There's so much more to this film, but several plot points are best left unrevealed for the sake of the story. The story itself, like in all musicals, is what happens in between the musical numbers. Depending on your taste in pop music, or music in general, will determines whether you want more story, or more dance sequences. I personally enjoyed both the dance numbers, as well as the story. Dancer in the Dark takes a sharp turn towards the macabre in the latter half of the film, and I don't see the story being told any other way than it was. Selma becomes a tragic hero, a scapegoat for a somewhat implausible situation. Her character seems to suffer from a predestined tragic fate that may turn off some viewers in terms of common ways of thinking, as well as acting. Dancer in the Dark is a hard film to watch, both in terms of what happens to Selma and also in how the movie is filmed. The director, Lars Von Trier, belongs to a movement in cinema called Dogma 95, which attempts to strip away the fakeness of modern cinema and go back to the golden days of realism. One of the vows of chastity is incorporating such elements as available lighting, as well as not employing special camera effects in films. Von Trier opts for hand-held video shots for all non-musical scenes, and will likely cause a feeling of motion sickness in most viewers at some point. I found it best to just look away from the screen or close my eyes when this happens. It's a film that challenges you while you are watching it, both physically and emotionally. Bjork's performance is one of the most heartbreaking I've seen in a film, and hers is definitely one of the more monumental roles in years. She's transformed into Selma, and it would be hard for someone not to be affected by her character. It is pure emotion. The musical numbers are another great aspect of Dancer in the Dark that have to be praised. Sure, the dancing may not be anything close to the choreographed numbers of Busby Berkeley, but I don't think they were intended to be. The soundtrack that Bjork composed for the film herself is full of dark overtones, and the beats are transcending as well as very modern. Performance wise, Bjork steals the show, but there are other great peformances worth noting. David Morse, a totally under-rated actor I've just enjoyed watching in every role since Sean Penn's The Indian Runner, plays Selma's landlord. You would probably recognize Morse in the role of Brutus "Brutal" Howell in The Green Mile. Morse, along with Catherine Deneuve, who plays Selma's best friend Cathy, and Peter Stormare in a wonderful silent, shy character role, put in some career worthy performances here. Dancer in the Dark is a challenge to watch. Several people walked
out of the screening I attended. One man just laughed to himself on the
way out. Some may see the film as a joke, or a put on. My theory is that
this feeling may arise because this film is a new form of cinema just now
being viewed by mainstream audiences. It's the most "independent"
film I've seen in years, and I can't praise it enough even though most mainstream
audiences spit on material like this. |
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