Day Twenty-Two: Dancer in the Dark

Though I'd heard Lars Von Trier's films called dark and gloomy, I never expected so bleak and depressing a film as this one. Its main character, played by a beautiful and charming Bjork, lives in a half-dream world where her only wish is to save her son from her own fate of going blind, single-mindedly saving money for an operation for him. But the world is almost uniformly against her, despite the hope and tenderness she inspires in those around her (even a corrections officer on death row, where she eventually ends up after being charged with murder), and she ultimately meets a chilling end.

This movie reminded me most strongly, somehow, of recent film Changeling: in both, a mother works tirelessly for her son, and in both, she is accused of insanity and selfish plotting and wrongfully imprisoned (though the main character of Changeling eventually escapes and achieves some semblance of happiness). But while Angelina Jolie there was simply a normal, hardworking woman beset upon by circumstances beyond her control, Bjork here achieves a kind of tragic heroism in her refusal to admit her own blindness or to reveal her quest to the world, even when on trial, and in her elaborate daydreams inspired by the musicals she loves. The film opens as she struggles through a local production of The Sound of Music as Maria, and towards the end that scene is painfully and also gorgeously recreated as she stands in her cell, crying out the words in the otherwise silent prison, the cheerful words and her bouncing movements in wrenching contrast with her situation.

I first heard about this movie when I went to see Brokeback Mountain when it came out my senior year of high school. As my friends and I stood outside the theater, choking back the tears at that stark, painful film, a friend of a friend who was with us asked me if I'd seen Dancer in the Dark. Having finally seen it, over three years later, I can see the connection: neither offers much room for hope, and both leave you almost gasping. And both hammer the pain home with lovely music--I've never listened to Bjork much before, but her stunning voice will certainly stay with me.