Dancer in the Dark (2000)
Directed by Lars von Trier

Film Review

Dancer in the Dark received rave reviews when it was first released in 2000 and won the coveted Palme d'Or at Cannes that year, where its star Björk picked up the best actress award.  With its unusual mix of social realism and surreal song-and-dance numbers, it was certainly one of the most striking films of the year.  The film tells a poignant story of American social injustice in an effective and moving way.

The are two things which mar the film and prevent it from having the impact it should.   First, there is as a sense of superficiality, which becomes increasingly noticeable as the film develops.  Some of the characterisation is weak and the trial sequences at the end of the film are too contrived to be taken seriously.  More importantly, von Trier's use of the hand-held camera makes the film very difficult to watch.  The constantly moving camera does add to the documentary style of the film and helps to enforce its sense of realism, but it places an incredible strain on the spectator, and many will find it hard to sit through the entire film with feeling distinctly queasy.

Björk's performance is creditable, but not exceptional in a role that demands a great deal.  She is easily out-classed by Catherine Deneuve, who is surprisingly convincing as a pragmatic working class woman (similar to the part she had played in Claude Lelouch's Si c'était à refaire a quarter of a century previously).  The film's musical sequences are an interesting addition, helping to emphasise Selma's naïve sense of optimism,  but they detract from the film's realism and become increasingly bizarre - and trying - as the film progresses.

It is interesting to speculate how much better the film could have been, and how much greater its impact might have been, had it been be filmed using more conventional techniques, without the musical sequences.  Whilst Dancer in the Dark is unquestionably an innovative work, it does feel somewhat false and empty, and it certainly is not the powerful social realist drama it perhaps ought to have been.

Film Synopsis

1964.  A Czech émigré, Selma Jezkova, works all the hours she can to earn the money so that her twelve year old son can have an operation to save his eyesight.  For Selma, it is too late to cure her of her own impending blindness, which she tries to keep from her friend Cathy and her employers.   When her landlord, a cop, helps himself to her stash of savings, Selma's world starts to fall apart.  In a violent confrontation, she kills the cop and shortly afterwards she is arrested.  Blind and unable to defend herself, Selma's passage to death row is a mere formality...