RSS 2.0Dancer In The Dark (2000)
Not being a great von Trier fan, I had not yet been inclined to watch Dancer in the Dark but as Pip happened to have it on DVD and I am a Catherine Deneuve fan, I thought I’d give it a go after all. Having been warned it was a musical, but also very dark and tragic, I had absolutely no idea what to expect.
Bj’rk plays her first (and as she claims, last) role in a feature film as Selma Jezkova, a Czechoslovakian immigrant living in America with her 12-year-old son, Gene. She works hard to make ends meet with her lowly factory-worker’s salary, but also makes time to rehearse her role as Maria in ‘The Sound of Music’ as musicals are her passion. Her rapidly deteriorating eyesight soon jeopardises her ability to do her job, so she moonlights on the side to earn more money as fast as possibly, carefully saving her hard-earned cash in a biscuit tin. Only further on in the film do we discover what it is she is saving up for, but by then her life starts to fall apart and she finds herself in serious trouble.
To escape this ever-darkening reality, she bursts into song with increasing regularity. Whilst most of the film looks rather desaturated, illustrating the dreariness of her life, the moment Selma starts singing, her surroundings become full colour, just like the escape they represent for her. I like musicals and liked this film, but you’ll be disappointed if you expect this to be like The Sound of Music (and naive too if you know anything about Lars von Trier). Bj’rk wrote most of the music herself and there are some catchy tunes in there, but her distinctive voice kept making me think, “Oh I already have that Bj’rk album…”. It’s certainly a far cry from Julie Andrews singing about female deer.
Miss Gudmundsdottir doesn’t sing throughout the entire film and her spoken dialogue takes a little getting used to with that funny Icelandic/London accent of hers. Catherine Deneuve who plays her colleague and friend is (as far as I could deduce) also supposedly from Czechoslovakia, yet has a distinct French accent (naturellement), which makes the film feel rather internationally confused. However, I think Deneuve and Bj’rk’s own accents bothered me less than if von Trier had made them put on extreme Eastern-European ones.
Dancer in the Dark is filmed in a rather journalistic way with handheld shots wobbling their way around scenes that feel like they are partially improvised. It makes the whole thing feel very realistic and not too sentimental. Only the end could be accused of being slightly sentimental. It’s definitely a tear-jerker, so bring your tissues.
***1/2 out of 5
suzero (90 posts)Suzanna Noort - TV/video director/editor and multimedia something. Amsterdam, Netherlands
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Damn another one I missed… Did hear the soundtrack though which is almost as good as the strange jazz album she made with her father
BTW you’re also into vanilla coke? Best thing ever!!!
Comment by punkmachine — Fri July 25, 2003 @ 15:33Everyone’s affected at least a bit by Von Triers drama. It’s simply too extreme. He throws every trick in the book at you multiple times. So you’re bound to go down. When I saw this film, I was really in the mood for it, so it left quite an impression.
I didn’t like the musical parts that much though, they seemed like little Bjork video clips to me. Luckily it didn’t affect Bjorks convincing acting.
Although, I like regular Coke best. For me, Pepsi Lemon beats Vanilla Coke
Comment by reisneus — Sat July 26, 2003 @ 18:05Now you mention the mini-Bj’rk videos, I remember thinking how funny it was that at one stage in D.i.t.D. she’s singing on top of a moving freight train – exactly like that video of her singing on the back of a truck going through New York City.
Lemon Coke sucks. Long live vanilla.
Comment by suzero — Sun July 27, 2003 @ 11:07Right! I hadn’t noticed. Hmm … as a mini-video the freight train sequence was kind of cool. With the hands and all. As ‘stand-alones’, these ‘musical’ elements worked really well.
It’s PEPSI Lemon. I never drink Pepsi, but a team of blond perfect youngsters we’re handing out ice cold Pepsi Lemon cans on a hot summer day in G’tenborg. The word ‘Pleasantville’ came to mind.
Comment by reisneus — Sun July 27, 2003 @ 15:42What in the world is wrong with Bjork videos? I liked em all! Too bad her music has too much of a suck factor
And hell yeah! PEpSi Is OwNeD by ThE VaNiLlA cOkE cRu
)
Comment by punkmachine — Tue July 29, 2003 @ 11:04Punkmachine, do you mean ‘all Bjork videos in this film’ or ‘All Bjork videos in general’ ? I like almost all of Bjorks video’s, except the ones in this movie.
Comment by Anonymous — Wed August 13, 2003 @ 1:04I think this is a great film. Sure it goes for the heart as subtly as a sledgehammer to the head – but it works. Bjork is wonderful and it affected me deeply.
Comment by damian — Wed June 23, 2004 @ 16:16Second time around it was even worse – I knew what was coming. I have this on dvd and have managed to sit through it fully only 4 times – it just overpowers me. I keep watching a few of the musical numbers every now and again though.