Dancer in the Dark (2000)
I’ve been wanting to see Dancer in the Dark for a long time and I must say I wasn’t at all disappointed. Lars von Trier, Björk, Catherine Deneuve, good music and a heart breaking story – a pretty good combination. Also, the documentary-style appearance makes you feel more close to the characters, which is something I really like in movies.
The story follows an European woman – Salma (Björk) who moved in the United States hoping to raise money for an operation that could save her son from a life of darkness. Between her jobs, taking care of her son and the illness that would eventually make her blind, she finds time for drama classes and daydreaming. Unfortunately, all her struggle is about to be destroyed by the man who is renting her a trailer near his family’s house.
It’s actually kind of an ordinary story, if you stop to think about it for a moment – a poor woman trying to save up money for her son, someone trying to steal that money and death. But Lars von Trier managed to turn that into an amazing musical drama. You can actually almost feel the poor woman’s pain and despair, especially in the end. It was quite a nice end really, not nice in a happy ending kind of way, but more in a theatrical way.
Selma: You like the movies, don’t you?
Bill Houston: I love the movies. I just love the musicals.
Selma: But isn’t it annoying when they do the last song in the films?
Bill Houston: Why?
Selma: Because you just know when it goes really big… and the camera goes like out of the roof… and you just know it’s going to end. I hate that. I would leave just after the next to last song… and the film would just go on forever.
