Dancer in the Dark (2000)
There are many thematic similarities with Breaking The Waves with an emotionally tragic story about a women paying the ultimate price for being a good person. What is unique and at first very frustrating here, is how it looks. Shot on video it looks pretty horrible. The colors are ugly and the homevideo style feels wrong for a story that takes place in the 1960s. I hated it at first, but after about an hour I sort of forgot about it and what started off as feeling very fake ended up being very real with its documentary style camerawork. It isn’t a type of movie that one would expect to be a musical, yet for reasons I can’t explain it works here. Mostly due to Björk being an enchanting presence with her unique voice. The disjointed jumps into sing and dance was both extremely out of place and so perfect in a deconstructionist sort of manner. While the ending in particular is pretty manipulative from Triers side with how he puts the viewer exactly where he wants us emotionally, I am amazed how effective it is - without violins.
Naturally Björk is the real star here and without her this movie wouldn’t have been what it is. But I also need to mention Siobhan Fallon Hogan in the minor role of the empathetic prison guard.
Rating: 5