director/screenwriter
Lars von Trier
producer
Vibeke Windeløv
cinematographer
Robby Müller
music
Björk
editors
François Gédigier
Molly Marlene Stensgaard
cast
Björk (Selma Jezkova)
Catherine Deneuve (Kathy)
David Morse (Bill)
Peter Stormare (Jeff)
Joel Grey (Oldrich Novy)
Cara Seymour (Linda Houston)
Vladica Kostic (Gene Yeskova)
Jean-Marc Barr (Norman)
Vincent Paterson (Samuel)
Siobhan Fallon (Brenda)
Zeljko Ivanek (District Attorney)
Udo Kier (Dr. Porkorny)
Stellan Skarsgård (Doctor)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 140m
u.s.
release: October 6,
2000
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other lars
von trier films
reviewed on this website:
- dogville
- manderlay
|
Dancer
in the Dark is this
season's love-it-or-loathe-it film (and I do mean loathe
-- some critics have downright spit on it). Count me, if you
must put it this way, among the suckers who fell for it. The
new film by the Danish auteur Lars von Trier, whose 1996
Breaking the Waves similarly polarized moviegoers, Dancer
in the Dark dares to be a dark-tinged musical with swooning
flights of fantasy and vertiginous plunges into despair. Some
may find this mixture unpalatable and manipulative; I find it
intoxicating, a reminder of what movies can do better than any
other medium. The movie is a tribute to the raw power of Hollywood
melodrama and the bliss of Hollywood musicals, neither of which
has been seen much in such impassioned, undiluted form in these
heavily ironic times.
Von Trier introduced Emily Watson to the global audience in Breaking
the Waves; here, he introduces Björk -- the Icelandic
pop singer who needs no intro to music buffs -- to the big screen.
Originally tapped by von Trier only to write and compose the
film's songs, Björk wound up playing the heroine, Selma
Jezkova, a Czechoslovakian factory worker whose congenital eye
disorder will soon render her blind. Selma lives in squalor with
her young son Gene (Vladica Kostic), who will lose his
sight eventually unless Selma works hard enough to pay for his
surgery.
That's the set-up, and that's about all I'm going to reveal --
not that anyone well-fed on centuries of melodrama couldn't forecast
most of the film's emotional storms. But as storms go, Dancer
in the Dark is about as perfect as we're likely to get this
year. Like the bedridden hero of The Singing Detective,
Selma uses her memories of Hollywood musicals (which she cherishes)
as an escape hatch -- from the tedium of her job and, later,
from the nightmare her life has become.
Von Trier's cinematographer Robby Müller shoots everything
with drab lighting and a hand-held camera that never met a whip-pan
it didn't like -- until von Trier takes us into Selma's head,
at which point the film blushes and blossoms into vibrant color
as the characters break into song and dance. Then it's back to
gray reality again. As the film chases down its climax, it flips
back and forth between the styles much more often, indicating
Selma's greater need for escape.
The movie boasts one of the more oddball ensembles in recent
memory -- Catherine Deneuve as Selma's concerned co-worker (who
rehearses with her in an after-hours local production of The
Sound of Music); David Morse as a financially strapped policeman
and Cara Seymour (the ill-fated prostitute "Christie"
in American
Psycho) as his shopaholic wife; Peter Stormare (the monosyllabic
brute in Fargo)
in a rare nice-guy turn as a factory worker who's sweet on Selma;
even von Trier mainstays Stellan Skarsgård and Udo Kier
in small roles. But everyone here, as out-of-place as they seem,
also seems inexplicably right, and that begins with the
casting of Björk, who took the Best Actress prize at Cannes
(the film itself won the Palme d'Or).
This isn't a diva vanity project á la Madonna in Evita.
Björk is in great voice, which is a bit like saying that
rain is wet; but the surprise here is how deeply and fully she
gives herself to Selma's extremes of emotion. Reportedly her
relationship with von Trier became very strained during filming,
and my guess is that he forced her to go where she would rather
not have gone. I can only speak as a selfish moviegoer and say
that whatever psychic turmoil Björk endured has translated
into a star performance alternately radiant and lacerating, sometimes
both at once.
Is Dancer in the Dark an ironic parody of musicals or
a banal recap of them? Neither tag rings a bell with me. Even
without the musical numbers, von Trier has given us a compelling
story with original characters. David Morse's cop, for instance,
is set up as the villain of the piece, but he's about the nicest
and most pitiable villain you could imagine. A female prison
guard near the end (soulfully played by Siobhan Fallon, a Saturday
Night Live veteran) isn't the usual butch meanie, but a woman
whose heart goes out to Selma in her time of trauma. Selma's
son, despite her devoting her life to him, barely even notices
her most of the time -- he's a realistically self-absorbed kid.
The story consistently rubs against the grain of your expectations.
Mingled with the drizzly realism are some of the most dazzling
musical numbers in years -- and the happier Selma looks in these
numbers, the sadder the movie gets as it goes on. Dancer in
the Dark is a true workout, an experience whose sights and
sounds will needle you for days whether you like it or not. Fortunately,
I loved it. |
