Dancer in the Dark - New Line Platinum Series

Rating:
Summary: Simply the best...
Review: The first time I watched "Dancer in the Dark", I had already listened to a good portion of Bjork's music, primarily her "Post" album. However, I do not remember if I watched DITD because of her or if because my sister recommended it. Probably a combination of both. Either way, watching this movie was probably one of the most emotional events of my life. I have never ever seen a movie more intense or moving than DITD and I recommend this film to anyone who would like to really feel again for a character who truly is beautiful and fulfills the highest ideal of any human being.
Let me just say that while this movie is rated R, there is little if any profanity and no sexual content whatsoever. Rather, this film is probably rated for its extremely intense displays of violence. In the scene where Selma "kills" David Morse's character, there is a sense that Selma does not want to do what she is doing and you can sense this in her sobbings as she slams a large metal box over Morse's face.
The final scene at the gallows is without a doubt one of the most cringing and intense scenes in movie history, rivaled probably only by the end of Part 1 of the Green Mile.
DITD takes you places that you most likely would not voluntarily want to go in real life. Selma's sacrifice for her blind son is so beyond 'average American humanity'. Although Selma believes in communism (heaven forbid, so Anti-American!), her selfless actions prove that there are no real lines of separation in our world. The lines we believe are there are only imaginary.
I truly recommend DITD for Anybody; however, please be prepared; DITD could just change your 'vision' of things forever.

Rating:
Summary: Makes Pearl Harbor Look Like a Masterpiece
Review: Playing a hunch, I decided to view this movie as I've heard the musical numbers were pieces of art. I was greatly disappointed with this movie. The little respect for Bjork I had going into this movie was quickly lost as I could not get into her role. I couldn't believe her performance. Furthermore, the movie is just brutal to watch. Its a sad attempt at an emotional tour de force and it ends up being contrived and predictable. The movie actually made me dizzy at several points due to the low budget shaky camera work. In short, I've tried to find a redeeming factor in the movie, but I just can't. I felt bad giving up on it, but it was just flat out horrid.

Rating:
Summary: Superb Bjork, Had Shed Our Emotions....
Review: Away from Bjork the super singer, I truley
and honestly must say that after I'd watched this film some
years ago, I'd have to say that why Bjork wasn't even nominated for best actress in the Academy Awards for 2000?

Her stunning Oscar-deserved wining performance was rarely to see once in a decade or so. I can compare the intensity of the viewer's astonishment to Bjork's performance as to Marlon Brandon's GodFather performance regardless of the two stories.

I don't want to spoil the movie events here, the film is simple
in its main events, has nice songs, but, the film is dramatically
effective and goes deep into your emotions...becasue of Bjork.

Whether you like the story or not, the songs or not, definitely
you'll adore Bjork's existence in the story telling, and drama
with a stellar acting.

I urge Bjork to do more acting projects as she has another artistic level has to show to us.

I can rate this film 10/5 stars...not just 5/5 !!


Rating:
Summary: A Failed Experiment
Review: I very much wanted to like this film. The premise of a single-working mom who is going blind finding relief from her harsh reality through musical-number fantasies looks to be an intriguing extension of the cinematic musical form; alas, it is rendered trite and annoying to me by mediocre and uninspired song-and-dance numbers and one of the most self-indulgent and shrill performance I've yet seen: Bjork seems incapable of emoting with restraint, either grinning idiotically or blubbering hysterically. There's acting, and there's overacting. Sorry folks, but I'm personally glad she's sworn off doing any more films.

Rating:
Summary: Aggravation manifest on film
Review: This film's main character, Selma, played by Bjork was either a victim of the heavy hand of fate, or lost in a dream world of her own creation so much that she abandoned her son and let her life end far too early. Either way my sympathy for her was tested again and again, and now, after seeing Dancer in the Dark, after all the praise I heard and see written on this site, my sympathy for her is minor.
What starts out as a fascinating, intimate sketching of several peoples connection to each other in Washington state in 1964 turns into a anger-enducing, logic stifling, aggravating exposure of a woman's elimination from society.
Why the simple, poetic committment to Bill? (It sure wasn't mutual.) Was it love? Why the inability to express any argument to Bill's wife? (Especially for Jean's sake.) Why the lack of expression, for the sake of her son, of her predicament, in court, to Kathy, to Jeff? All of these actions, or lack of actions hindered her. Then, when the show is about to end, and she realizes she can't just leave the theatre she realizes the end. And her son is better off how? He might be able to see. See that he's alone, or has Jeff as a father? Not only did she not have to die, Bill didn't, she could have gotten the money back (hell, even put your arms out and feel if Bill is in the room, and wham, this is a different story) if she opened her mouth. In such dire circumstances, a woman whose most ecstatic state is opening her mouth to sing, couldn't even speak. Poetic, yes. Aggravation more so.
To me, so much of Dancer in the Dark was unnecessary. That lack of urgency in the face of doom, and the folly of whimsy shut me down and out. Poetic, yes. But aggravation more so.

Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking And Marvellous
Review: It's very hard to describe such a movie, and there's no need of that either, but I can tell you this, if you haven't seen the movie, you must buy this DVD, why? well...the movie is great, Björk and all the actors perform wonderfully and it has a lot of bonus feature such as Dance Rehearsals and Cast and Crew Filmographies etc. So, if you buy the DVD you get a wonderful movie, fantastic music, and plenty of bonus features....you won't be disappointed.


Rating:
Summary: Poetry Inspiration. A true Reality.
Review: Bjork's film overwhelmed me. This is my favourite film. Because it portrays real life. Not in the fairytale way. Though it's ending is haunting and <sad>, it is real. It's what would truly happen in reality not in Hollywood.

I've always viewed Bjork as a confident, organic soul, but on this film she is humble, fragile and absolutely beautiful. Bjork really fits the character and this film is just so emotional. It's believeable, though by reading the plot it seems a bit cliched. This film is spectacular. I'm sorry but you are going to have to Watch this. Even if you hate Bjork's music. She is excellent as an actress. Far better than any other film debuts by the other divas, this kills Whitney's Bodyguard, slaughters mercilessly Mariah's Glitter and crucifies anything Madonna has done. Bjork -you are a true artist. (...)

Haunting...
You'll be writing your own "Selma Songs" after watching this.

Rating:
Summary: Not a traditional musical, but a good one
Review: The movie is so sad and moving I cannot begin to defend its realism or ponder on the its deeper meanings. I didn't feel manipulated. Situations as those presented in the film don't happen often and are not everyday events. They would seem just as unreal if they happened to one of us in our real life. A group of young kids found themselves in a similar situation in Sothern California in the mid 1990's. Watching it play out was just as disturbing. The reality is that there are things more important than fairness. A nice home, a good life, pleasure, money -- when these things are on the line it is very easy to dismiss the lives of others as this film presents so vividly.

Rating:
Summary: How come his name is always misspelled on the topic?
Review: "Lars Von Tiers" Is his actual name, and there's no reason for condemning his work if you don't try a clean googling of it!

Remember, only your eyes r not enough for a passionate review if making such mistakes, to begin with!

Never mind, we know well how bad schools have been for the last couple decades...
Sorry for the danish people, they must be horrified reading some of these opinions, I bet!



Rating:
Summary: Danse Macabre
Review: You could call DANCER IN THE DARK an "anti-musical," but that might suggest that musicals up until this point have been a kind of static genre that needed this kind of corrective.

Actually, since at least CABARET and likely before, musicals have been less about "Let's-put-on-a-show" than "Let's-explore-the-dark-side-of-our-souls." There hasn't been anything in the way of cinematic Sondheim so far, but from NEW YORK NEW YORK to HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, film musicals have been getting less and less sunny and more and more ominous in recent decades. In light of that history, how radical a departure is DANCER IN THE DARK really? The sordid "reality" vs. the musical "fantasy" is not all that new. The television version of PENNIES FROM HEAVEN did it at least as well.

The film's almost naturalistic reality sequences become almost as surreal as the musical fantasy sequences by the last third of the film. While there is some internal logic to Selma's refusal to participate actively in her own defense, there is clearly no reason why others (her friends Kathy and Jeff, in particular) would have not been able to come to her aid more effectively. The trial and subsequent prison stay and execution are meant to be stark and disturbing. To some extent these scenes succeed in that, but there is much about the last hour or so that just does not ring true--even in the stylized and distorted sense of "truth" that von Trier is trading on here.

The reviewers who complained about von Trier's "anti-Americanism" make a point. European audiences, for instance, may eat this stuff up (it did win the Palme d'Or after all), but American viewers might find it way an un(der)-nuanced representation of American culture and our legal system, even if it's the culture and legal system of 40 years ago.

On the other hand, as anti-death penalty films go, it is at least as good as DEAD MAN WALKING and much subtler and more effective than LAST DANCE. Like those films (and so many other Death Row dramas), however, DANCER does give its talented cast a chance to shine. Bjork's cinematic debut is impressive (and it's a real shame that the experience proved so traumatic that she has foresworn acting from now on). Catherine Deneuve is quietly effective (although still a touch too glamorous for her role as an immigrant factory worker). And it's always nice to see David Morse in a substantial role. Von Trier is a good director of actors. Time will tell if he'll prove to be a great director overall.