Dancer in the Dark (Platinum Series) (1999)

I love this film. Watched it 5 times in one weekend - 3 times in one day - cried every time. Very clever - loved the "day-dream" sequences. But most of all, interesting characters. Bjork portrayed well how much a mother will sacrifice for her child. It might take you a while to get used to the black and white, hand-held camera, and slow pace. But hang in there - the pay-off is worth it!
 
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<P> Von Trier has taken hits time and time again for trying to stretch the work that he does...to bring back the joy of making movies. Many people stand up and scream because he bends the so-called "rules," but why would we want him to turn out the same boring movies that we so often see from the big CA studios. Quite frankly, Dancer in the Dark is powerful, and you should see it. <P> You don't have to take my advice. I knew nothing of the film until I stumbled across four Danes who were traveling through Kazakhstan (where I was living at the time) on their way to Tajikistan in the summer of 2001. The son of one of Von Trier's long-time friends/associates, Tom Elling (who worked on The Element of Crime, 1984, among others), was among them. He brought along camera "33" from Dancer in the Dark to document their journey. Hence, given my new friends' ties to the movie, I had every reason to want to like this movie. And I did enjoy it. <P> Admittedly, the musical scenes sometimes feel a little awkward, with melodies pouring out from the clanking of wrenches and the turning of cranks, not to mention the bizarre moments where some of the actors sound like they're really pushing their musical abilities. But let's face it: the cast and crew were incredibly diverse, and the sights and sounds that permeate the movie were all awkward, much like the unchanging soul of the central character, a blind woman trying to operate machinery. <P> These elements are all sharp metal pins that poke at the viewer, but Von Trier is able to pull them and focus them like an invisible magnet hidden beneath the surface of the "film." Perhaps this is why the movies' reviews seem polarized, repelling the unfortunate few. This force, centered in a director who tries seriously not to take everything too seriously, draws all of the elements towards the tragic ending. <P> One of the most powerful aspects of the film is that you know that it's not always believable, but the emotion builds and builds. You don't really understand why you're being moved by something that is so obviously fiction. But in the end, it hits you...Von Trier hits you. You become frustrated--in a good way--by a work of fiction that happens to be set in America. What a great movie! It took a European to take us to this level. <P> This is definitely not a movie for impatient people who hate movies that tell stories. Relax a bit. Don't expect it to give you hidden knowledge that will forever alter your life (though it revived my love of movies that actually move me); just expect it to tell a story that you will remember and feel long after you have cleared your eyes. <P> I will agree with the first reviewer that Moulin Rouge is a good musical. See it with Parisians if possible; you will be even more amused by the humor striking chords of American pop culture, especially if you can recognize the lyrics of "Like a Virgin" without the accompanying music. But, come on Reviewer #1, let's not compare Dancer in the Dark with Moulin Rouge. They are two totally different movies. COdY
 
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This film has gotten a lot of good press, possibly because it contains all the "marks" of an "important" film, like a half-hearted nod to director Von Trier's own Dogme 95 style, its use of digital video, its self-conscious commentary on the musical genre, its casting of Bjork, and its obligatory bleak ending. Yet plenty of pretentious films with similar elements have found themselves critical failures, and this depressing clunker of a melodrama seems to have made some ardent fans among those who have seen it. Personally, I can't imagine why.

The film itself is fairly ugly, but the bleak, muddy video look is intentional--not only a mood-setting artifact of digital video but also a "comment" on brightly colored happy musicals of yore. I don't really mind the style, but Von Trier uses it to spend a lot of effort commenting on the difference between musicals and reality, as if no one had noticed before that life doesn't resemble a technicolor dreamworld where people break into song-and-dance numbers and everything turns out okay. Really? Life and movies are different? How novel!

The musical fantasy segments of the film are shot in brighter colors to mimic this Technicolor effect, but another gimmick violates the rules of old-time musicals by breaking up what would be nice dance numbers into static shots from 100 digital cameras positioned around the set, edited together in such pathetically incomprehensible ways one wonders why anyone bothered to choreograph dances in the first place. This is yet another attempt at a too-clever violation of genre convention, but the result succeeds only in creating not just an anti-musical, but a lousy one at that.

Not that Dancer in the Dark really creates a realistic world for itself, either. By the time the unbearably slow end of the film creaks around, it's weighed down by at least forty minutes worth of improbable events and head-slappingly senseless decisions which serve only to stubbornly propel the drama at the expense of believability or sympathy for the increasingly stupid lead character.

Von Trier wants to make a musical that breaks all the rules of musicals, but instead he's made a film that throws out all the elements that ever made musicals worth watching. For a better, more joyous musical revival effort, try Moulin Rouge.
 
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