Dancer In The Dark DVD Review

This movie is about Selma, a Czechoslovakian immigrant who loves to daydream about musicals.

Selma lives in a small town in America. She is losing her sight and working desperately in a machine shop to save money so that her son can have an operation to prevent the loss of his own sight. Selma is quickly becoming unable to do the work in the machine shop because of her poor vision. Meanwhile, her policeman landlord has squandered his inheritance and gotten himself in a hole financially. When he discovers that she has a big can of money in her kitchen cupboard, he steals it, and musical mayhem ensues making this movie a musical tragedy in the best sense!

The plot is a bit old fashioned but enjoyable. The clear-cut story was set in the 1950s and was the kind of story you would have seen in the 50s. In some ways, it reminded me of an extended episode of The Twilight Zone. A good, simple woman sacrifices everything for the good of her child and meets with tragedy in the end, but somehow, it is for the best. The cast, Bjork, Catherine Deneuve, Joel Gray, Peter Stormare, is impressive. Director, Lars von Trier is well-known for unusual and off-beat productions. The music was a surprise and Bjorks acting ability was a surprise to me; although, I have read other reviews by people who have seen her act before and were not surprised. The ending scenes were especially strong and affecting.

The movie was not exactly entertaining. It is not a movie that you sit back and relax to watch. It takes a bit of work. If I had to pick one word to describe this movie, it would be "interesting". And I don't mean that as a polite way of saying it sucked. It was truly, deeply, interesting. The characters were interesting, different, odd and quirky. The total lack of background music contrasted with the unusual musical numbers was interesting. The music, itself, was interesting, beautiful, powerful and haunting. The choreography was interesting and original. The filming technique was interesting and unusual.

Afterwatching this movie movie, I thought and felt that it was well-done, and I was interested in learning more about how it had been made and who Bjork is. I wanted to know more about the director and understand more about the camera work, choreography, and other technical aspects of the film.

I would recommend this movie to some. People like me who like an unusual movie and want to know about the technical details of a film will be absorbed by this film. People who just want to be entertained will probably not like the film. In fact, most reviews I read of this film were evenly divided. People either loved it or hated it.