Cast: Björk, Catherine Deneuve, Peter Stormare

Director: Lars von Trier

Screenplay: Lars von Trier

Running time: 2 hrs 21 mins

Genre: Drama/Musical



CRITIQUE:


Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark is an odd beast. It is a musical, yet also an anti-musical at once. It bears a self-conscious knowledge of cinema, how the medium can blur the lines between the fantasy and reality, the limits of imagination and filmmaking itself. One of von Trier’s testament of the filmic movement Dogme 95 (which stipulates that cinematic works be shot in the rather rudimentary DV cameras, hence the home-video look), following Breaking the Waves and The Idiots, it works as both a critique and meditation of the Hollywood musicals where, in Björk’s Selma’s words, ‘nothing can go wrong’. But of course, in the projected reality of this film, if you’re a Czech immigrant in America, working in an aluminium sink factory (allusion to the kitchen-sink drama) and going blind, everything and anything can go wrong. What is more, if you have a child who suffers the same genetic disorder. This is the bleakest musical you’ll ever see in your life, with a touch of sepia tones, telling a story of a suffering woman robbed of her sight, her financial resources, which would secure her son’s surgery, and unjustly executed. There are moments of sheer genius here: musical setpieces stirred from Selma’s daydreams, where Björk’s eccentric music somehow makes sense in the context of Selma’s circumstances. The factory’s cacophony of drilling, mechanical noises somehow create a harmony of sounds. Standout scenes such as the sequence on the rail tracks where Selma heartrendingly sings her soul out that her eyes have seen enough; the aftermath of the murder where Selma waltzes with her victim, forgiving her, and the devastating rendition of The Sound of Music’s My Favourite Things in a prison cell – these are pure escapist sequences, literally used in the film as an excuse for Selma’s character to flee the harsh realities of her cruel world. Björk may have been remembered as the one that wore a swan-frocked ensemble at Oscars red carpet, but her performance her should never be underestimated. It’s an emotional rollercoaster, and Björk delivers here that’s beyond words. She declared that she will never act again. Consider it one of a kind.



VERDICT:

Bleak, chronically heartbreaking and devastatingly powerful, Dancer in the Dark is a matchless work from one of cinema’s distinctive voices. Lars von Trier has captured something here that transcends limitations of genre. A box of Kleenex is prescribed.



RATING: A