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Dancer in the Dark (2000)

tomatometer

68

Average Rating: 6.7/10
Reviews Counted: 115
Fresh: 78 | Rotten: 37

Dancer in Dark can be grim, dull, and difficult to watch, but even so, it has a powerful and moving performance from Bjork and is something quite new and visionary.

67

Average Rating: 6.4/10
Critic Reviews: 27
Fresh: 18 | Rotten: 9

Dancer in Dark can be grim, dull, and difficult to watch, but even so, it has a powerful and moving performance from Bjork and is something quite new and visionary.

audience

90

liked it
Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 54,521

My Rating

Movie Info

Reportedly the third in acclaimed director Lars von Trier's "Golden Hearts" trilogy (preceded by Breaking the Waves and The Idiots), this film is a hip reworking of the classic Hollywood Musical, starring international pop diva Bjork. Set somewhere in rural Washington state, Czech immigrant Selma (Bjork) works in a pressing plant, struggling to make ends meet for herself and her 10-year-old son, Gene (Vladica Kostic). Her best friend is coworker and fellow European Kathy (Catherine Deneuve).

R, 2 hr. 17 min.

Musical & Performing Arts, Drama

Lars von Trier

Mar 20, 2001

$2.8M

Fine Line Features

Cast

All Critics (134) | Top Critics (34) | Fresh (80) | Rotten (38) | DVD (21)

At least Dancer in the Dark is bad in a complicated way.

March 19, 2002 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comments (2)
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Aims right for the heart and aces its target.

June 5, 2001 Comment
Rolling Stone
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So unrelenting in its manipulative sentimentality that, if it had been made by an American and shot in a more conventional manner, it would be seen as a bad joke.

January 1, 2000 Comment
New York Post
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It's not just that the numbers are berserkly bad; they also don't seem to have any emotional connection to this bedraggled, Dickensian waif.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: New York Magazine | Comment
New York Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Denmark's enfant terrible Lars von Trier finally won the Camme Palme d'Or for this postmodern deconstructive musical featuring a stunning performance by Bjork.

April 7, 2011 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | Comment

Habitually galling director Lars von Trier's musical is a black-swan genre rarity - a 1960s-set sledgehammer to Broadway and Hollywood's insistence on sunshiny endings in golden-era musicals about Nazis, murder and suicide.

September 25, 2010 Full Review Source: Suite101.com | Comment
Suite101.com

Everything about Bjork and Dancer in the Dark is enigmatic in an uncomfortable dissecting way that shows beauty in the crudest way, and crudeness in the complexity of advanced social mores.

October 26, 2009 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | Comment
ColeSmithey.com

It is not pleasing to watch, by any conceivable definition of that word.

September 12, 2007 Full Review Source: Antagony & Ecstasy | Comment
Antagony & Ecstasy

Even without the musical numbers, von Trier has given us a compelling story with original characters.

July 29, 2007 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
eFilmCritic.com

I was devastated by it. What bothers me is this: It is the easiest thing in the world to do... move people by destroying something beautiful.

December 6, 2004 Comment
Looking Closer

Von Trier is vicious when it comes to milking the melodrama.

June 5, 2003 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Dancer in the Dark

A devastating, soul-crushing take on the justice system concerning a blind immigrant (Bjork), who gets by as a machine-worker by day and a theater performer by night, who is exploited by some people she is closest to in 1964 Washington. This film is a full mixed-bag, as director Lars von Trier occasionally gets too

December 14, 2011
Dan Schultz

Super Reviewer

Selma (Björk) é uma jovem imigrante da Tchecoslováquia que se mudou para os Estados Unidos com o propósito de criar seu filho Gene (Vladica Kostic). Vivendo uma vida de pobreza, Selma trabalha em uma fábrica de esmaltados junto de sua melhor amiga Kathy (Catherine Deneuve) e vive em uma pequena casa alugada no quintal

August 9, 2011
Matheus Carvalho

Super Reviewer

    1. Selma: In a musical, nothing dreadful ever happens.
    – Submitted by Kate S (9 months ago)

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