(c) Photofest / Getty Images
“Dancer in the Dark” Anti-musical, anti-America *Note! Contains spoilers.
2023.07.20
"Dancer in the Dark" synopsis
America in the 60's. Selma, who came from the Czech Republic, works at a factory while raising her son Gene on her own. Kathy, her older best friend who looks after Selma like a mother, her neighbor Bill and his wife who take care of their son in any way possible, and Jeff who has quiet feelings for Selma. Selma lived a fulfilling life surrounded by people who understood and loved her, but Selma had a sad secret that she could not tell anyone. She is losing her eyesight due to a genetic disease, and Jean will suffer the same fate unless she undergoes surgery. Selma works hard to get her beloved son to undergo surgery. However, one day, he was fired from his job at the factory, and even the money for his important surgery was stolen...
Index
Musical film as melodrama
`` Easter Parade '' (48), `` Odori Daihiiku '' (49), `` Singin' in the Rain '' (52), and `` Band Wagon '' (53). Movie musicals are one of the most American forms of artistic expression. Stars like Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Judy Garland dance and sing on screen. People all over the world were captivated by its brilliant world. Lars von Trier, a boy who grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark, is one of them. I was fascinated by the Hollywood musicals shown on TV.
However, what won Trier's heart was not the show's extravagant entertainment, but its melodrama. In his review of `` West Side Story '' (61), he says, ``It's operatic'' (*1). Songs and dance that uplift the audience, yet a tragedy that tears the heart apart. Trier may have been attracted to this ambivalence to the point of fate.
Eventually becoming a film director, he released a series of eccentric and hard-edged works that seemed to trap, ridicule, and toy with the world. He won the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize for `` Europe '' (1991) and the Grand Prix for `` The Sea of Miracles '' (1996). And for ``Dancer in the Dark'' (2000), she won the Palme d'Or, the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival, and her profile skyrocketed.
"Dancer in the Dark" (c)Photofest / Getty Images
However, this work is just as eccentric and hard-edged as the previous works. The main character of this film is Selma (Björk), a Czech immigrant. Due to a congenital disease, she is losing her eyesight, and if this continues, her son Gene will also go blind. He works hard every day to earn money for the surgery. Going to see a musical movie with my best friend Cathy (Catherine Deneuve), dreaming up a musical to the rhythm of the factory press sounds, and immersing myself in the gorgeous world of music, I forget the harsh reality even just a little. I was trying.
However, Bill (David Morse), a police officer who is in debt, runs away with the money, and during a struggle, he accidentally shoots him. Selma is arrested and is unfairly discriminated against because she is an immigrant from a communist country, and is unable to hire a lawyer in order to save money for her son's surgery. She is sentenced to death by hanging for first-degree murder.
What a terrible story. Even as I write my own synopsis, I end up feeling gloomy. Lars von Trier has brought back to life in a very special way the world of dreams that he had seen in his childhood.
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