Dancer in the Dark
2000 · Directed by Lars von Trier
Original language: English
- drama
- crime
The story
Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her young son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life becomes increasingly difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.
What it’s like
Handheld digital camera jolts close around faces in a grimy, washed-out 1960s American town, with flat grey factory light, dim kitchen bulbs, and grain that thickens in the dark. Its musical numbers break through that drabness: sudden bursts of colour and staged movement, with the rhythm of machinery, footsteps and train wheels turned into percussion. The sound moves between clanging industrial noise, hushed domestic quiet and Björk's fragile, pitched voice. Vibe: bleak, feverish and tender, with stretches of anxious dread that give way to shocks of joy. It is intense. Relentless emotional distress, courtroom and prison scenes, and a sudden, brutal act of violence arrive late, and the ending is devastating. Gore is minimal, but the cruelty and suffering are sustained and raw. It suits a committed, late-night watch rather than a casual one. Ideal for viewers who want an unsentimental, formally bold melodrama about devotion, self-deception and the refuge of imagination, and who can bear to stay with an unforgiving story.
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