Dancer in the Dark

Part 2: Björk -- Myoptic, Disarming, and Doomed

More of this Feature • Part 1: My Favorite Things on Death Row • Part 3: Straight to Movie Heaven    Join the Discussion "Probably the only movie in the history of movies that can contain both musical numbers and the death penalty! Bjork was terrific. " Miss Movie     Related Resources • Scandinavian Film • Scandinavian Directors • Von Trier's "The Idiots"    From Other Guides • Bjork    Elsewhere on the Web • Offical Site • Rotten Tomatoes

So what's the movie about? Dancer in the Dark is the story of Selma, played by Icelandic pop diva Björk, a Czech factory worker in Oregon who is slowly going blind and works double-time at her factory job to save up the money she needs to pay for the operation that will save her son from the same fate.

If this sounds like a rough life to you, you should know that it gets worse from here. With grim determination, von Trier tightens the screws and sends Selma down a road of betrayal, greed, and pain that ends on death row.

If you've seen von Trier's Breaking the Waves, you should have a pretty good idea whether or not you'll like Dancer because in many ways, this movie is a remake of that one. Both films are arranged around the tragic fate of a strong yet vulnerable female character. Both films feature merciless male authority figures, disarming performances (Björk, like Emily Watson before her, is amazing, and Catherine Deneuve is, well, Catherine Deneuve), and loving but helpless men.

Von Trier's trademark style, the jerky camera movements with rough cuts and natural lightning reminiscent of Super 8 home movies, is in full effect once more, but like Breaking the Waves, Dancer is not a strict Dogme '95 movie. Instead, much like the gorgeous chapter headings in the earlier movie, von Trier juxtaposes beautifully shot musical numbers with the harsher reality.

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