Review of Dancer in the Dark

This is the third Lars Von Trier film that I have watched. It is, by what awards it has won, the most critically acclaimed film by Von Trier. The other movies I have watched are his pre- Dogme film Europa and the recently released Melancholia. Like Von Trier's other films, this one is stylistically different from his other films pushing new ground by including musical numbers in its narrative.

The film is at once about injustice in America, and again a story of sacrifice by a mother for her son. Bjork, who stars and sings throughout the film, plays an immigrant factory worker barely surviving in Washington State. Her character is prone to daydreaming and setting reality to musical numbers. I'm someone who doesn't normally enjoy musicals, but when I saw a musical number taking place inside a factory I was mesmerized.

The film starts and proceeds innocently enough. It focuses on the lives of factory workers; Bjork and her son, a man who courts Bjork, and Catherine Denueve. The action takes a dramatic turn when Bjork's landlord, also a policeman, steals all the money she was saving for her son's operation to fix his eyes so he could see his grandchildren. Bjork is framed, but she refuses to tell anyone that she was robbed and was saving the money for her son. Bjork refuses to pay for a good lawyer instead using the money for her son's operation. This means she is sentenced to death.

The death scene is shocking, the epitome of tragedy. How can Bjork be hanged? How can her character recieve the death sentence? The film is set in 1960s America, so, perhaps, the justice system is biased against women. Clearly, something more could have been done to avoid such a horrible treatment of Bjork by the American justice system. I think that is what Von Trier's major theme is; injustice was at the core of America in those years. Ill treatment for women and other minorities was standard.

Like Europa and Melancholia, this film ends tragically. Yet, this film is better developed the Europa. I felt like Europa ended on a confused note, that the only option Jean-marc Barr had was to kill everyone. It seemed to border on predigested endings. In Dancer the ending is excrutiatingly emotionally. The end comes along slowly and evermore tragic. As much as I liked Europa, I must say that Dancer and Melancholia are better developed films. They are both better paced and better written than Europa. Yet, Europa is still a great film.