Dancer in the Dark [VHS] [2000]

In her first, and most probably last screen performance (she has foresworn acting after her bruising on-set rows with von Trier), brittle Icelandic chanteuse Björk plays Selma, a Czech immigrant living in a folksy American small town with her young son Gene. Selma is going blind and so will Gene if she does not arrange an important operation for him. To cover the expense, Selma works every hour she can, cheating on her eye tests so she can keep working at the local factory long after her vision has become too unreliable to work safely. She sublets a house from local-cop Bill (David Morse) and his wife, Linda (Cara Seymour). When nearly bankrupt Bill asks Selma for a loan she refuses, but he later returns and steals the money, which she demands back in a furious confrontation. In the ensuing mélee, Bill is fatally shot and Selma is arrested and put on trial. Will justice prevail?

Von Trier's passionate, provocative film runs all our emotional resources dry with suspense, giving us occasional flashes into Selma's gold heart and mind with superb song-and-dance numbers she conjures to banish the nightmare (Björk also wrote the score). At some two-and-a-half hours, it's not for lightweights, but anyone bored with today's smug, "ironic" cinema will relish this as an astonishing assault on the senses and a stark reminder of Von Trier's uncompromising talent. --Damon Wise

The final installment in Lars von Trier's Golden Heart trilogy (which includes "Breaking The Waves" and "The Idiots"), Dancer In The Dark takes the director's original blend of heightened pseudo-realism and fabricated melodrama to a dangerously intense level. The story concerns Selma (Bjork), a Czech immigrant living in 1964 Washington State with her 12-year-old son, Gene (Vladan Kostic). On the verge of blindness, Selma spends her days working in a factory, as well as performing other odd jobs, in order to save up enough money to pay for an operation that will cure Gene of the same disease. To pass the time, Selma fantasises that her own life is a musical--one in which her friends join her in sweeping song-and-dance routines. After her neighbor Bill (David Morse) discovers Selma's hidden savings and steals them from her, she is forced to perform an act of salvation that will condemn her forever. As the innocent Selma, Bjork is one of the most fragile and heartbreaking presences the screen has ever seen. Her unbearably moving performance is enough to keep the viewer mesmerised throughout, even amid the story gaps and inconsistencies. Featuring compassionate supporting performances by Catherine Deneuve and Peter Stormare, Dancer In The Dark will have sympathetic audiences quivering with uncontrollable emotion.