Hey folks, Harry here with a look at Trier's highly heralded work, DANCER IN THE DARK, which was shown at Cannes to great acclaim and discussion. Now it seems that the film is being tested for marketing reasons in the United States, specifically in Boston last night. For all of those that are unfamiliar with von Trier's work, this should be an excellent step onto the wagon of his work. Also, I hear that Bjork fans will be quite pleased, as will those that don't think highly of her... whoever these freaks may be... Here's Something with his/her review...
Hello Harry,
Here's my review of a pre-release cut of Lars von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark", shown at the Loews Nickelodeon near Boston University. Though I won't step through the movie scene-by-scene, there'll be spoilers sprinkled throughout. To state my biases up-front, I have seen and enjoyed von Trier's "Kingdom" series (1 & 2), and am second-hand familiar with his other work (incl. Dogme 95). In regards to Bjork, I am an enthusiastic fan of her music and video work.
Despite some particularly nasty New England rain, the audience (composed of college kids & somewhat hip young professionals) filled the theater to near capacity; the film was briefly introduced as "a special event" and "something that few people at all have seen". The studio people also noted that the film was set in "1963 Washington [state]", which isn't explicitly stated in the movie, and ended by explaining that the film is proceeded by a full blown overture (an orchestral movement played over a black screen), which is something I haven't seen in years.
After the overture (and a hopefully temporary title screen) the film dives into the central characters and relationships; Bjork plays Selma, a Czechoslovakian immigrant with a pre-pubescent (and potentially delinquent) son Gene (Vladica Kostic). Selma's friend Kathy (Catherine Deneuve) works by on a factory assembly line. Selma rents her homely trailer from a couple, Jean and Bill (Cara Seymour and David Morse); Bill is a policeman who has recently come into some money; the couple act almost as back-up (and much wealthier) parents to Gene. Finally, Peter Stormare plays Jeff, who displays unrequited love for Selma by constantly offering her rides home from work.
The film takes its time setting up the characters and the situations described above, and this is frankly not particularly compelling. The Dogme 95 approach is very much on display in the early segments, and the rapidly cut/unsteady cinematography feels overly-fragmented at times; thankfully this technique is used more conservatively as the movie continues. In any case, once the characters have been established the camera work calms down and the film gathers momentum and narrative drive.
Bjork's character Selma seems to be a rather stingy mother; though Selma is warm and generally beloved by those around her (and returns this affection), we don't see her extend this affection to her son - Bill and Jean give him a bicycle on his birthday, while Selma gives him nothing). However, we see that she carries a second job and has a large amount of cash hidden away.
We soon learn two secrets, the first is that Selma is going blind (she has already been shown cheating on an employer-required eye test); furthermore, her son Gene will also go blind (a congenital condition which he is unaware of) if he does not receive an eye operation which Selma has been saving virtually all of their money for. The second secret is that Bill is approaching bankruptcy, but cannot admit this to his less-than-thrifty wife. Selma and Bill's sharing of these secrets drives the remaining events of the movie, which become increasingly violent and tragic as Selma and Bill make hard choices which they refuse to back away from.
In fact, the reminder of the film is so extremely violent and tragic (although these scenes are not without a perverse sense of humor, which was apparently lost on a good deal of the audience), that von Trier could be accused of simply re-working his "Breaking the Waves" storyline (which I have not seen, but am familiar with). However, there are two key differences here; this film is centered around Bjork's Selma, and therefore it's a musical.
First of all, Bjork has an undeniably unique image and personality (there aren't many elfin Icelandic singer/actresses out there) which transfer well to the screen - she is virtually never off-screen, and her compelling presence anchors the film, despite some weakly-staged scenes and off-kilter acting. While one of the people I saw the movie with wasn't able to forget that she was "watching Bjork", I think that this is more of a factor of Bjork's uniqueness than poor acting. However, Bjork-ness is also something of an acquired taste - I know someone who finds Bjork "creepy", and any film as tightly wrapped around a single personality as this one is will certainly fail for anyone who dislikes that personality. While "Breaking the Waves" was (apparently) also quite dependent on audience's acceptance of Emily Watson's character, Bjork's presence as Selma enables the film to be a musical.
When I say that Bjork "enables" this film to be a musical, I mean exactly that; Selma's deep love of musicals (besides watching musical film she rehearses for a local production of "The Sound of Music" and pretends that a famed Czech singer-dancer is her father) causes her inner thoughts and emotions to manifest themselves on-screen as full-blown musical numbers. This (rather weird) cinematic conceit requires a very particular personality to carry off (especially in the context of the doggedly- realistic Dogme 95-style). If we fail to believe that these musical numbers are (as a friend puts it) Selma's "emotional landscape", then the film falls down completely; Bjork's Selma comes across beautifully as a downtrodden-but-hopeful incarnation of musicality.
As for the execution of the musical numbers themselves, they implicitly deny some Dogme axioms (the music is pre-recorded and lip-synched), and come across as an odd hybrid of music video and stage musical numbers (and yes, I mean this in a good way). The set-pieces are composed of everyday settings and situations (a factory floor, a train passing over a bridge) but are extensively (if loosely) choreographed - whatever may be "missing" in terms of glitz and glamour is compensated for with human motion, color, and song (composed/performed by Bjork and the cast). Unfortunately, the camerawork occasionally veers into hyperkineticism, which is a bit annoying, but overall these scenes (which are presented using a more bright & saturated video method than the bulk of the movie) have a genuinely & infectiously upbeat feel, even when the musical numbers are used in disturbingly "inappropriate" situations.
As for the non-Bjork, non-musical elements of the film, the remainder of the cast does admirable work; Deneuve is particularly excellent as the compulsively supportive Kathy, and Stormare handles the balance between caricature and character perfectly. David Morse's Bill is the one other character to receive significant attention from the screen play, and he carries off this crucial role, providing nuance to a potentially one-sided character. As for the look of the film (which was shot on digital video), the cinematography is constantly inventive (sometimes irritatingly so), and mostly effective, especially in key dialog scenes. However, I am not a real convert to the digital video "look" of the film; while I mostly appreciate its use here, some of the video "artifacts" still "feel" like technical limits instead of visual choices.
I do have some stronger criticism of the film; first of all, the shaky pace of the opening ten-fifteen minutes can be a bit hard to overcome (it seemed that some of the audience had a hard time becoming familiar with the characters early on). Secondly, I don't feel that the relationship between Selma and Gene is sufficiently fleshed out in the film, especially given the lengths which this relationship drives her to. Finally, several scenes in the second half felt unnecessarily drawn-out; I feel that the court room and prison scenes would have particularly benefited from some of the editing "shorthand" which is effectively used in the middle of the film, and a bit over-used at the start.
Despite these reservations, the decision to make this story as a musical is what allows it to transcend its (otherwise gloomy and depressing) subject matter and a 140-minute running time; the film manages to convey the essential optimism and hopefulness of it's main character, even as she is steadily brought down by forces both beyond and within her control. Whatever criticism of misanthropy (and/or misogyny) von Trier's work may garner, it can't be denied that "Dancer in the Dark" successfully brings Selma's outer and inner life to the screen. This begs the question of whether viewers will respond to Selma's particular personality, or be able to tolerate watching what she goes through; however, I can quite comfortably declare that I quite enjoyed this film.
(And If I weren't, I wouldn't have written so damn much...)
As far as studio-insider-information goes, I was not able to get into the "focus group" which was run afterwards, but did overhear some studio-type shouting into his cell phone that "recommendations were limited, but reactions were nominal"; I presume this to mean that the audience wouldn't universally recommend the film (frankly, I find it easy to come up with the name sof friends who would hate it), but that the audience enjoyed it.
I assume that you have to call me something, so call me "Something."
P.S. please pardon the length of this, I've been writing a lot of program documentation and specifications lately.
