Dancer in the Dark (1999)
Runtime: 2 hrs 21 mins
Theatrical Release: Sep 23, 2000 Wide
Box Office: $891,547
Synopsis: The final installment in Lars von Trier's Golden Heart trilogy (which includes BREAKING THE WAVES and THE IDIOTS), DANCER IN THE DARK takes the director's original blend of heightened pseudorealism, fabricated melodrama, and the priciples of the Dogme 95 genre to a dangerously intense... The final installment in Lars von Trier's Golden Heart trilogy (which includes BREAKING THE WAVES and THE IDIOTS), DANCER IN THE DARK takes the director's original blend of heightened pseudorealism, fabricated melodrama, and the priciples of the Dogme 95 genre to a dangerously intense level. The story concerns Selma (Björk), a Czech immigrant living in 1964 Washington State with her 12-year-old son, Gene (Vladan Kostic). On the verge of blindness, Selma spends her days working in a factory, as well as performing other odd jobs, in order to save up enough money to pay for an operation that will cure Gene of the same disease. To pass the time, Selma fantasizes that her own life is a musical, one in which her friends join her in sweeping song-and-dance routines. After her neighbor Bill (David Morse) discovers Selma's hidden savings and steals them from her, she is forced to perform an act of salvation that will condemn her forever. As the innocent Selma, Björk is one of the most fragile and heartbreaking presences the screen has ever seen. Her unbearably moving performance is enough to keep the viewer mesmerized throughout, even amid the story gaps and inconsistencies. Featuring compassionate supporting turns by Catherine Deneuve and Peter Stormare, DANCER IN THE DARK is an unrelenting gut punch that will have sympathetic audiences quivering with uncontrollable emotion. [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Björk, Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Marc Barr, David Morse, Stellan Skarsgaard
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Reviews
It is not pleasing to watch, by any conceivable definition of that word.
Even without the musical numbers, von Trier has given us a compelling story with original characters.
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.
Though flawed, Dancer in the Dark is a worthy addition to the filmography of Mr. von Trier.
The songs are all written and performed flawlessly by Bjork. And not only can the pixie goddess sing and dance, she can also act.
The situations that writer-director Lars von Trier serves up here might be embarrassingly florid, but the coupling of his manipulative skills and Björk's showy intensity results in a movie with the force of an emotional bulldozer.
The turgid soap opera of a plot reveals little of the human truths [it] presumably wants to uncover.
...a calculated attack on conventional sentimentality and Hollywood illusion; the kind of movie that means to frustrate your expectations rather than affirm your assumptions.
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