Dancer in the dark

‘Dancer in the dark’ is simultaneously an ode to the Hollywood musical, an experiment in digital filmmaking, and a wholly unique, landmark film in contemporary cinema. Similar to ‘Breaking the waves’ and ‘The Idiots’, it centres on a martyr-like female character who is put through excruciating sacrifice and suffering. The setting is rural, 1950s America. Selma (played by Icelandic pop star, Bjork), a Czech immigrant, works day and night to save money for an eye operation that will prevent her son from inheriting an eyesight condition that currently plagues her. What Selma lacks in vision, she makes up for in imagination. ‘Dancer in the dark’ is punctuated with extended fantasy musical sequences in which the drabness of the everyday is transformed into something fantastic, joyous, rhythmic and utopian. Though she enjoys the support of friends, including her best friend Kathy (Catherine Deneuve) and neighbour Bill (David Morse), and is active in the local theatre group, things go from bad to worse for Selma. Loss of financial security and crude betrayal leads to murder, death and an overall Herculean sense of tragedy. Von Trier does many fascinating things in this film. Though he partakes in the Dogme tradition - which seeks to strip away the complete artifice of cinema and usher in the ‘real’ through only ‘natural’ means - Von Trier also reworks and questions it. He does so by juxtaposing documentary-style, almost ‘home-video’ footage, with extremely dazzling, technologically sophisticated, emotionally delirious musical numbers. By throwing together opposite cinematic styles, pushing the characters, the story and the audience to absolute limits of emotional intensity and melodrama, Von Trier not only brings out the essence of the musical as a boundless, overwhelming force, but also asks questions about cinema itself and its powers of storytelling in a post-modern, digital age.