Review of Dancer in the Dark (2000) by Jens T — 04 Jun 2011

Lars von Trier's milleniums film Dancer in the Dark is an unpleasant realistic dark story about the horror of the death penalty and the story about the hard working capitalistic healthcare in the US. I'm not sayng that in as an attack on the US, but that's the truth and that's why this story is a made into a picture at all.

This is the story about the czech immigrant Selma Jeková (Björk) who is born with a hereditary illness that makes her eyes worse by the years until she eventually goes blind. She also has a son who have the same illness as his mother. So Selma desides to make enogh money to afford an operation that will make her sons eyes perfect, but it isn't going to be easy specialy when her eyes prevents from doing as much as she chould, and it's going to be worse and worse. Selma has many people around her that supports her in her difficult life, the land lord and lady who let her rent a travel trailer to live in on their property. She's also supported by her best friend and fellow czech Kathy (Catherine Deneuve) who sometimes works as her eyes and by many occasion have take the heat for her. We have also the shy and over-supporting Jeff (Peter Stormare) who has fallen I love with Selma and wants her to be her girlfriend, he does everything as she says and is never agressive. Selma has never told no one about the money she puts away. what will happend when she desides to tell someone? The biggest interest and passion in her life is dancing, she have loved it since she was a little girl in the old country and watched stars like Fred Astaire on the golden screen. She often daydreams that she is a part of a spontaneously musical act.

Dancer in the Dark is a dark movie, to dark, darker then his earlier film specialy in this trilogy The Golden Heart trilogy that contains such great masterpieces as Breaking the Waves and The Idiots. Dancer in the Dark is definitely the greatest of them all. The icelandic singer Björk is supernaturally great in the sole acting role that is one of the greatest preformances in the history of motion pictures, her tears, her crying, her horror all this makes me burst into tears. the whole cast is great. A big thumbs up.