Dancer in the Dark

anyone else enjoy this movie? i almost gave up during the beginning.. but wow, i am very pleased i did not. i found the movie very creative, unique, and emotionally wrenching because there were times when i just wanted to grasp my tv and shake it and go 'WHYY?!?!?!"

the music also rocked my socks. favourite song would have to be i've seen it all. yay for bjork!

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I just saw this the other night. I can't say I enjoyed it. This is one of those movies I didn't like or dislike....some things I liked, some things I didn't.

As far as acting, Bjork really impressed me. She was the best thing about the movie. As far as the story...it was too depressing for me....and many things didn't make sense to me. Like her friend the policeman/ neighbor/ landlord stealing her money. Also...I wish the relationship between the son and his mother had been built up more. I thought it very odd that she would go off to drama class when she spends very little time with her son, whom she's sacrificing herself for. There are other things I thought were odd...like the camera...at first I felt I was watching a home movie....and the over-use of bobby pins to make her look frumpish was a bit much.

I did cry at the end...it was touching. Bjork won me over with that end scene in particular.


You'll probably hammer me for this edmo...but I couldn't stand Bjork's singing. It's like nails on a chalk board to me. I had to fast forward through most of the songs. >.<;;;

Can I just say that I think that fast forwarding is the Devil?

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Dancer in the Dark is an amazing movie, and the only cinematic experience that absolutely devestated me emotionally. The first time I saw it on the big screen, I was either weeping or all-out crying most of the time from the duet with Jeff on the train tracks ("I've Seen it All") until the finale. No other film has come even close to effecting me in such a way.


And while I've never been a fan of Bjork's music before (excepting for "It's Oh So Quiet", which was such a fun video), I thought every song in Dancer in the Dark was just perfect.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Likewise, Holden, likewise.

Dancer in the Dark is the only film that has ever had such a profound effect on me emotionally, that my physical state was also effected. At the conclusion of my first viewing of the film I was shaking, and hyperventilating, unable to gain control of myself [emotionally or physically] for a good five or six hours.

To my sadness, I found von Trier's Breaking the Waves (1996) to be much less devestating and engaging [despite Emily Watson's beautiful performance].

DANCER IN THE DARK: A++
BREAKING THE WAVES: A

"In a musical, nothing dreadful ever happens."

Man, do I have a heart of stone?? I really didn't like this film. Aniko has allready pointed out some of the things that is bad with it. The characters aren't believable and some of the things that happens just don't make sense, especially when she kills her friend who stole the money. I said it on Movie Tab yesterday; the Björk character is depicted as a very stupid and naive woman and it irritates the hell out of me. The film is a part of a trilogy by von Trier (together with Breaking the Waves and The Idiots) and I know it is supposed to be about sacrifice and innocence and goodness. But to me this woman isn't good. She is obsessed and makes a lot of idiotic decisions. The camera work and the cinematography is also so boring. This is what you get when a cinema movement (Dogme '95) gets bigger than the films within the movement. It is too obvious and too much and I don't see the point.

Contrary to what Aniko thinks, the music and Björk is about the only things I like with this film. She does a wonderful job depicting that woman, especially since she's really not an actress. And I liked the music and dance numbers more than I liked the "acting parts". The songs were good and the choreography was innovative.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

I think the opposite. Breaking the Waves is a so much better film on all levels, imo. The story and the environment in which it is set feels true and von Trier developed the characters much more in this one. I know that the script was re-written over and over and over again over a long period of time so that might have something to do with the depth in the story compared to "Dancer", which to me feels much more sloppy.

I can't say I was completely devestated after having seen "Breaking", but I was very moved and upset. After "Dancer" I was mostly irritated on von Trier.

I think Lars von Trier is a strange, weird guy, and that his films need to be seen and judged based on a film-by-film basis [while I think Dancer in the Dark is better than Breaking the Waves, I think that he nailed the Dogme95 "look" better in '96].

I think it's the same with Baz Luhrmann, too. In the trailer for Dogville [which I am looking forward to despite myself], they refer to von Trier as a "mad genius" [or something along those lines], and I remember that in the Moulin Rouge promotional whirlwind they were calling Luhrmann the "visionary director". Personally, I don't think that von Trier is a genius, nor that Luhrmann is a "visionary". Both have very distinct, very heavy, [very messy] styles, and whether you like the look of Dogme or that of Red Curtain cinema [both are "movements" that operate on a set of rules, as it happens], I think you ultimately just need to see the films, and judge them for yourself.

Off-topic and Von Trier related, Kingdom is in my opinion his best work.

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(signature space for rent)

Piddy...you have one of the biggest hearts here...and it isn't made of stone.

I had a feeling I might ruffle some feathers with my opinion about the movie and about Bjorks voice. Sorry about that fellas, but I had to be honest.





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Maybe that's why I like it at times.

haha. i can't hammer you because that is simply your opinion. though i don't agree with it, i respect it hehe ;]

i was the exact same, before the movie i only liked one bjork song, and now i love the whole selma songs cd. i've listened to some of her other stuff, but it's just not the same, probably because it doesn't carry the visual and emotional weight these songs do for me.

yes.

i actually really liked the cinematography in this movie, especially during the songs. oh, and i was kidding about your heart being made of stone.. hehe.

hehe, this is what many of my friends had to say about the movie as well, but i have always really taken a liking to depressing movies for some reason, such as requiem for a dream, donnie darko, swing kids, and dead man walking. i don't really like being depressed or sad, but, just the fact that the movie can make me feel such true emotion really makes me respect it. and yeah, for some odd reason i really enjoy them. they seem very profound to me, i think because usually there is some important underlying message that is emphasized moreso by the emotion the movie causes. but i don't know. hehe.. i just like them.

As someone who adores Bjork and her music, I am very displeased with myself for not seeing this yet.

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You're not hopeless...

Hmm.. well, you're right I guess. "Boring" was perhaps not the right term to use about the cinematography. And the song and dance parts were, as I said before, what I liked the most about it. And I guess the camera work is good in those parts. But I thought the thing about Dogme (among other things) was to make as much as possible out of real simple equipment. In this film it looks like they had the equipment but made it look ugly so they could label it a "dogme-film". I remember thinking some of the editing didn't feel motivated at all.

My reaction: very, very similar (damn near identical) to S.B.'s and Holden's. Movies often get me on an emotional level--tearing up/weeping at the "very special moments" is a familiar occurence--but I almost couldn't deal with what Dancer in the Dark did to me. By the end, my stomach and my throat ached, and my eyes were dry and sore. It was simply amazing and tragic and beautiful and absolutely devastating (to steal S.B.'s very apt word).

When it was over, I sat, silent, through the credits. I couldn't even get up to turn the movie off. And then my husband, who'd seen it three times already (!) and had been waiting for weeks to get me to watch it, turned to me and said, "Let's watch it again."

I couldn't then, and I can't now. It'll probably be a long while before I'm ready to take that journey again.

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You were a demon and a lawyer? Wow. Insert joke here."

An S/M kind of relationship, eh??

He does enjoy my pain.

hehe silly silly thread this has turned into... hehehe.

Selma is a Czechoslovakian immigrant who claims a musical star for a father, and holds a stern but passionate love for her only son Gene. Despite her failing eyesight, and the troubles it causes her in her monotonous factory job, Selma almost always has a smile playing about her lips, and a positive take on events. Even when being strict with the disatisfied Gene, she has trouble not letting her fondness shine through. And the rest of the time, Selma brings joy to backwater 50's community she lives in. From her anti-Communist boss to her bashful admirer Jeff, everyone melts in the face of her determined dreaminess. Even the brisk and forthright Kathy can't help but smile and support her clumsy friend, despite refusing to answer to Selma's playful Czech nickname for her (which means "big and happy", on the inside).

When we first see Selma she is rehersing her starring role in a local production of The Sound of Music. Music and dance are what keep her steps so light even amongst her heavy workload and life. Living almost like a pet dog in her modest shack on the land of a local police officer, she takes the patronising treatment of his wife, and the privations of her poverty, with positive equanimity.

One day her friend the policeman shares a secret with her, and she returns the favour. He has squandered his inheritence and is unhappy in his marriage. She has been squirriling away a large amount of money, not sending it to her father as she'd claimed. The story is now set for trials and tests, driven by the rhythm of life's constant quirky steps.

The film starts with dark and brooding music and flower-like images, which finally lift into a spritely music and a brightly lit, almost childishly scrawled, image. During the story the style makes occasional dramatic shifts, from Von Trier's wandering camera tracking the grind of daily life, to the smoothly sheened technicolour world of Selma's daydreams. In real life Selma needs people like Kathy to be her "eyes", interpreting her beloved musicals now they are just a blur on the screen. In her dreamworld we glimpse the self-sufficency and strength that endear her to others. Her ability to leap into a world song and sunshine at the darkest moments will be tested as her life changes for the worse. But this kernal of her being comes from the music of the world around her, and it is not just the escapism it might seem.

I thought this was a great film. I had reservations, and they were won over. I didn't think it was perfect, but i think a flawless version might have killed it.

Even the well-worn sources of Selma's inspiration were well used. The use of factory and train rhythms might have made me groan, if they weren't used so well, showing the different tones and tenors of Selma's dreamscape. And even more so by the end.

Previously i've been annoyed by Bjork's apparently limited style, and at first i was thinking her london-influenced accent was going to ruin the film for me. By the end she'd taken me fully in escapism, and back again, grounding it in something real. By the end she'd shown a voice that could be startling on its own - ferocious, powerful yet clear. She did herself exceptionally proud, and made this film come alive.

Beyond those criticisms, that turned into compliments, i thought this was beautiful sadness, made joyful, made real. There was criticism and celebration. Castigation of greed, and a planting of seeds. Von Triers dancing camera still steered me to where he wanted me to be. Which is in the wide-open space of interpretation, but aware you can't really roam free.

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Dancer in the Dark was an incredibly well executed film on all platforms of filmmaking. The concept/manifesto of Dogme 95 was well put to use capturing the raw human emotions put forth in the film. Lars is definitely an incredibly talented yet underrated filmmaker. For those true Cineastes out there, I reccomend viewing his 1984 film, The Element of Crime. It received the award for outstanding technical achivement at the Cannes Film Festival. Splendid cinematography and ideal for shot choice inspiration.

Quick note: To the individual noting his/her excuse for fast-forwarding, I understand the pain that some films do cause you to become restless, yet you have to respect the film and the filmmaker for the work, and most importantly you can learn something from every movie regardless of its ability to drown you in an abyss of boredom and frustration.

peace!

Radio Raheem

"Don't believe the HYPE!"