Review of Dancer in the Dark (2000) by Al M — 18 Dec 2010
As with many of Lars von Trier's films, Dancer in the Dark is as beautiful and emotionally harrowing as film can be. Some critics claim that the film is emotional manipulative or overly melodramatic, but I think they have missed the point.
Dancer in the Dark functions as a deconstruction of the musical genre as well as the genre of emotional tearjerkers. By bringing an effusively, utopian genre together with a depressing, dystopian genre, von Trier charts new territory through the interstices that exist between cinematic genres.
Dancer in the Dark represents the third and final installment in his "Golden Heart Trilogy"--the first two parts were Breaking the Waves and The Idiots. While von Trier remains famous as a founding member of the Dogme 95 movement, The Idiots is actually his only Dogme-certified film, but Dancer in the Dark retains many of the hallmarks of the Dogme style.
It features a washed-out, gray cinematography throughout the bulk of the film, which is interrupted at various points for the musical interludes sung by Bjork. Dancer in the Dark feels much more like Breaking the Waves than The Idiots because it also concerns a woman who has the best motives but spirals down into darkness because of forces beyond her control.
It is a powerful film about the fantasies we weave for ourselves in order to make sense of reality and to create a meaningful existence for ourselves even in the face of total destruction. Bjork is amazing in the lead role of Selma, a poor factory worker who is going blind from a degenerative and hereditary illness that will soon begin to take her son's eyesight as well.
Dancer in the Dark strays into true existential territory akin to Sartre or Camus or the absurdist works of Kakfa--to view it in any other light does a disservice to von Trier's vision. In the final analysis, Dancer in the Dark is a powerful meditation upon the evils of humankind as well as the inherently good qualities.
But, even more powerfully, the film concerns our methods of coping with the fact that evil sometimes wins.
This review of Dancer in the Dark (2000) was written by Al M on 18 Dec 2010.
Dancer in the Dark has generally received very positive reviews.
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