Well pardners, Harry here... I have a theory of filmgoing... There is a natural balance to the whole enchilada... a yin yang... take the good and the bad... facts of life format to it all. Case in point.... Today, you witness Capone go stark raving angry piss and shit on a movie called BEAUTIFUL... He's furious... raging... angry that those minutes of his life were wasted. My belief is... they were not wasted. You see, in order to earn the spiritual right to see a great film like DANCER IN THE DARK... to have the elation and beauty of this film truly fulfill your very essence... He needed to witness the utter despair and horror of a steaming pile of manure... it is the life of a fervent filmgoer... It intesifies your love for film... electrifies your passion and makes it all worth while... Enjoy our man from Chi-town's look at DANCER IN THE DARK... I see it on Thursday...
Hey Harry. Capone in Chicago here, getting ready for the upcoming Chicago International Film Festival, which starts up next week with the premiere of Robert Altman's DR. T AND THE WOMEN, with Altman and star Richard Gere in attendance. More details on the festival later (expect many reports), but the most exciting thing about it is the closing night screening is SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE. Kick motherfucking ass! Anyway...
If there is a true “bad boy” in European cinema, the title would undoubtedly go to Lars von Trier. The Danish-born filmmaker is probably the most ambitious and visually distinctive director in the world, but he has a reputation for torturing his actors and creating works that defy emotional and sentimental reasoning. He first become known in the U.S. in 1996 for his tragic tale of self-sacrifice, BREAKING THE WAVES. Before that, he made MEDEA (for Danish television), THE ELEMENT OF CRIME, and ZENTROPA, all of which are exercises in form and style that are both mesmerizing and disturbing.
Before making BREAKING THE WAVES (which effectively introduced the world to Emily Watson), Von Trier embarked on an ambitious television project, the 4-hour mini-series THE KINGDOM, a ghost story and creepfest set in a Danish hospital that “Twin Peaks” wishes it could have been (go rent it). He followed this up with THE KINGDOM 2, a sequel equal to the original.
By complete coincidence, Von Trier’s THE IDIOTS is now playing in for one week only, and I saw it two days before DitD. At its core, much like BREAKING THE WAVES, it’s about a woman in the midst of a nervous breakdown and the path she takes to escape the reality of a very painful event in her life.
Von Trier's's DANCER IN THE DARK has had a phenomenal amount of publicity surrounding it before it ever his these shores. The film and its lead actress, the singer Bjork, both won top prizes at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Bjork has said that Von Trier treatment of her and the emotional depths she had to reach drained her to the point where she never wants to be in another film again. Lars the Terrible strikes again.Without knowing any of this, I would have guessed that DANCER IN THE DARK was a tough film to make, both technically and emotionally.
Bjork plays Selma, a Czech immigrant working in a factory in the State of Washington. In additional to the factory job, Selma (who lives in a trailer with her son) works odd jobs for extra money at night as well. Selma is also almost completely blind (due to an unnamed disease) and is saving money for an operation her son can have on his 13th birthday to ensure that he does not go blind too.Selma is killing herself with work, but she has a secret method of coping.
The rhythm of the machines in her factory reminds her of music, and she loves American musicals more than anything. When she hears the rhythms, her mind wanders to a much happier place, a place where, in her words, “nothing dreadful ever happens.” Sometimes the moments when the film breaks into one of Selma’s musical moments make sense; other times they seem entirely inappropriate (at least in a traditional sense). She uses them as a means of escape from both tedious and terrifying events.
Selma becomes involved in a murder trial after an incident involving a neighbor (David Morse) tries to steal her money. From that gut-wrenched scene on, Selma’s life and the film spin out of control. People try to help get her out of trouble, including co-worker Catherine Deneuve and potential boyfriend Peter Stormare, but Selma’s obsession with using her money to help her son sends her down a path of despair the likes of which I can’t ever remember seeing on film.I’m not going to sugar-coat it: DANCER IN THE DARK is a sad movie that will rip your heart from your chest and stomp on it until you cry like a baby (or nearly burst a blood vessel trying not to cry). Bjork is the only woman on the planet that could have played this part, and not just because she’s a singer. There are three or four scenes in DANCER IN THE DARK where she cries real tears. She’s not recalling her dog dying when she was a kid; she IS Selma, and she is crying about the things that happen to her in this movie. Period. Bjork has a very natural and non-actor-like way in her performance. It annoyed me at first, quite frankly, but as the film went on, I grew dependent on her style. It simply felt real.
Take out the musical numbers, and this is effectively the same story as BREAKING THE WAVES. But you can’t take out or resist the song and dance. Listen to the words of the songs; they are as important to the story as the dialogue, and they reveal more than any spoken word ever could. DANCER IN THE DARK is a devastatingly perfect film that is as unique as it is haunting. It must be experienced to be believed or understood.
Still feeling very vulnerable,
