Review of Dancer in the Dark (2000) by Weisi S — 01 Jul 2014

With Lars Von Trier as director and Catherine Deneuve as a lead, Dancer in the Dark sounded like a diverse step forward for me to be viewing.

Dancer in the Dark ended up being an interesting film which was worth a viewing, but it is clearly a flawed feature.

The story in Dancer in the Dark is not that great. Lars Von Trier attempts to disguise the thin nature of the premise with an innovative film style. While the style of everything in Dancer in the Dark is interesting, it cannot fully disguise the nature of the story. It has a lot of potential and some interesting subject matter, but it ends up reducing itself to melodramatic sentimentality and it ges in senselss directions. The style of the film actually becomes an issue here because as thefilm style is really not that normal, it makes the rest of the film feel rather artificial. The premise has a certain level of value, but it ends up being too stuck in Lars Von Trier's nihilistic indulgence to actually stand up at all. I mean, a story about a girl going blind whose life collapses around her could have been interesting, but it needed to be better thought through and executed in an alternative way. If the actual mood of the film reflected the nature of its concepts then perhaps it could have been a lot better, but since it instead went in the direction of being a rather surreal musical film, the tone of the film is just odd. I can say that Lars Von Trier deserves props for his ambition on the project, but despite its potential, Dancer in the Dark never really reaches what it sets out to and instead ends up an unbalanced project which sports a lot of style but little in the way of substance that is not just more melodramatic nihilism. The light spirit of the film does not match the harsh reality of the story, and so the experience of Dancer in the Dark ends up rather strance and even emotionally distant.

The visual style of Dancer in the Dark is interesting. Although I thought that at the start I might not be able to enjoy the way that it was filmed in a mockumentary film style and with a rough quality handheld camera, eventually I found that I enjoyed the style. It made the film memorable and gave it a certain sense of imagery that made things feel almost surreal, almost as if the film was giving us insight into the mind of protagonist Selma Jezkova. Everything looks rough and unbalanced, and as the protagonist's vision gradually begins to succumb to blindnesswe gain an understanding of what she is seeing. The style of Dancer in the Dark actually ends up looking pretty impressive, and the cinematography captures both the beautiful nature of the scenery from many interesting perspectives and is then edited at a good pace. As a visual experience, Dancer in the Dark is an easy film to remember because it really proves how much Lars Von Trier is against standard theatrical conventions when it comes to storytelling, and it establishes the nature of his film style, for better and for worse. More so, Dancer in the Dark shows off Lars Von Trier's eye for strong imagery and his ability to build a complex atmosphere than a front for him to reveal his abilities at crafting a decent story.

And although the musical number scenes are a little odd and may even feel somewhat out of place, the film breaks into song in an interesting manner by developing at a decent pace into them before Bjork sings her heart out in the sequences. The tunese are catchy and are nice on the ears, further helping to establish the atmosphere of the film. Frankly, the style of Dancer in the Dark has its pros and it has its cons, but all in all it makes the film a rather trippy experience and therefore a memorable one. It is further enhanced by the talents of the cast.

Bjork Does an excellent job of proving how talented she is as an actress in Dancer in the Dark. While the film serves as a front for her to show off her internationally recognised singing talents, the focus of the importance is more on her acting and she manages to reveal just what kind of skill she holds when it comes to that level of entertainment value. Bjork portrays Selma Jezkova excellently with a performance so full of life that she is able to carry the screen easily by herself. She makes Selma Jezkova a compelling character and a likable one which the audience is able to find themselves caring about. Bjork projects a lot of spirit in her role and manages to show off just what good acting is truly about as well as what versatile talents she has to show off. Dancer in the Dark is a medium for many things, and one of them is the acting talents of Bjork which were good enough to score her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. While the tone of the film is troublesome, Bjork manages to make it work and entertains viewers in the process.

Catherine Deneuve also gives a nice performance. Although she does not recieve as much screen time as I had hoped, her performance is impressive and entertaining in an innovative way and it projects a lot of spirit within her. She manages to interact with the rest of the cast very well and you could honestly not expect anything less from the Academy Award nominee. Catherine Deneuve manages to work alongside Lars Von Trier very well and he brings out one of her more noticable performances in recent years.

So Dancer in the Dark is an innovative and stylish film. The fact that it is a lot more style over substance my faze some viewers and turn them off due to the indulgent material as well as the fact that the story is a melodramatic venture which is rather ridiculous, but the visual style of the film is unforgettable due to its colourful and surreal nature as well as the skilled performances from the cast, particularly the leading performance of Bjork.