Björk. That’s all I knew about Dancer In The Dark. As in that she was in it. So I was pleasantly surprised that it was a real, sensitive drama, a personal story of a woman with a genetic disease that will kill her after it blinds her. She is sacrificing everything, to save her son from the same fate, including not just justice, her money, life and honor, but her death too. If you have any sense of empathy and social conscience you will find this movie gut wrenching and tear jerking. But it was also sweet and a monument to motherly love.
Stylistically it was a mixture of two ad a half styles. All the dialogues and some of the shots of people alone were shot in the director’s Lars von Trier‘s characteristic dogma style. But they were interspersed with choreographed songs that reminded me both of classical Hollywood musicals and of eastern European communist operettas. In these sequences Björk./Selma the Czechoslovak immigrant sings and dances along with a chorus line of factory workers, grand jury members, railway men or whoever happens to be around. I loved these scenes, because they were almost always implemented industrial elements, making it tangible for the real world for me. The problem or drawing power of both capitalist and communist musicals was heir escapist nature and propagandist intention. Those were missing from these songs, they were just segments of the inner world of a woman slowly going blind, who adored the genre.
The supporting cast also needs to be mentioned. Every secondary character looked familiar as they were played by famous or known actors, including Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare, Cara Seymour and Udo Kier. I may have to watch the movie again to enjoy the details, if “enjoy” is the best world when you are watching a tragedy and you know it is a tragedy.
The film @ IMDB. (Summary from there: An east European girl goes to America with her young son, expecting it to be like a Hollywood film.)