Dancer In The Dark

Luke Coverdale

Film 486

The second film I screened was Lars Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark (2000). Having seen Europa (1991) in a film critic class in highschool and having learned about Lars Von Trier’s pension for controversy, I was fascinated to see the film. Björk’s appearance in the film and the music that she and Van Trier created also intrigued me and I wondered what a musical in Von Trier’s Dogme 95 style would be like. With all of this in mind, the film still managed to shock me, especially the ending reminiscent of A Short Film About Killing by Krzysztof Kieślowski, yet even more disturbing and tragic. 

The film centers around Björk’s character, Selma Ježková, a Czech immigrant who has recently moved to Washington with her young son, Gene. She works a lowly job at the small town’s factory, supporting her son out of a rented trailer on the property of Bill and Linda, a local police officer and his materialistic wife Linda. Selma idolizes Hollywood musicals, rehearsing in a production of The Sound Of Music and going to see musicals with her friend and fellow factory worker, Kathy. Her obsession leads to her often escaping the hardships of her life by fantasizing exuberant musical numbers, bound by and inspired by her life around her. 

Selma’s main struggle revolves around a degenerative eye condition that she suffers from, eventually going blind. She saves money in a hidden tin, hoping to afford an operation to save her son from losing his sight, as the condition is hereditary. She has Kathy help her fake her way through an eye test to keep her job at the factory, the first in a series of events that ultimately lead to tragedy for Selma. She ultimately falls to the greed of Bill, who steals Selma’s money to pay for his wife’s debts, leading to a tragically violent confrontation that leads to Selma killing him as the only way to get her money to save her son’s sight. The film takes us through the crushing process of Selma’s trial and eventual execution, leading to a final musical number with no background accompaniment, showing Selma’s loneliness in her final moments, ultimately sacrificing herself to save her son’s sight. 

The film is the third in Von Trier’s Golden Heart Trilogy, which is described as centering around naive female protagonists who maintain their “golden hearts” in the face of the tragedies they face. Often the characters are punished for their naivitiy, with small events having great consequences, as seen in Dancer In The Dark when Selma cheating the eye test is used against her to prove her capable of murder. The two other films in the series, Breaking the Waves (1996) and The Idiots (1998) follow these trends, as well as sharing a Dogme 95 inspired style, a filmmaking movement created by Von Trier and fellow Danish director Thomas Vinterberg. The movement centered around “purifying” filmmaking with a style focused on realism, centered around strictly enforced rules on subject matter, post-production and an entirely handheld style of camera work. While Von Trier created the manifesto to be strictly upheld, the only film of the trilogy to be truly Dogme 95 is The Idiots, which Von Trier himself admits still isn’t perfect. While The Idiots was nominated for the Palme d’Or, Dancer In The Dark took home the award in 2000, along with Björk winning an award for best actress.Many praised the film’s style and songwriting, with one of the songs written for the film, “I’ve seen it all” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. However the film and Von Trier continued to be controversial, many saw the film as in bad taste, disgusting and manipulative, as well as it gained further attention in 2017 after Björk posted on facebook that she had been sexually harassed by a Danish film director who would later come to be identified as Von Trier.