Dancer in the Dark (2000)
Country: DK/FR/SV/IT/GER/NOR/NL/ICE/FIN/GB/US
Technical: col/scope 140m
Director: Lars von Trier
Cast: Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare, Joel Grey, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier
Synopsis:
Struck with encroaching blindness, a Czechoslovakian single mother in America works and saves feverishly to pay for an operation designed to preserve her son from the same fate. Her love of music and dance carries her through the most difficult of times, even when accused of murder she is faced with the scaffold.
Review:
As in Breaking the Waves the director employs handheld Dogma techniques, with more jumpcuts than ever, (very painful on the eyes at this length and in this format). He also livens up the flat digital colour for the musical interludes, which are Billy Liar-like fantasy. It is a brave, some would say brazen, enterprise which tugs calculatedly at the heartstrings while constantly asserting its authenticity using artficial means. The new style seems far less truthful than the Nouvelle Vague it resembles when it is revealed that the director cut between scores of separate camera setups for the musical numbers. The cumulative effect of performance and directorial gaze does, however, secure the required emotional response before the end.
Country: DK/FR/SV/IT/GER/NOR/NL/ICE/FIN/GB/US
Technical: col/scope 140m
Director: Lars von Trier
Cast: Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare, Joel Grey, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier
Synopsis:
Struck with encroaching blindness, a Czechoslovakian single mother in America works and saves feverishly to pay for an operation designed to preserve her son from the same fate. Her love of music and dance carries her through the most difficult of times, even when accused of murder she is faced with the scaffold.
Review:
As in Breaking the Waves the director employs handheld Dogma techniques, with more jumpcuts than ever, (very painful on the eyes at this length and in this format). He also livens up the flat digital colour for the musical interludes, which are Billy Liar-like fantasy. It is a brave, some would say brazen, enterprise which tugs calculatedly at the heartstrings while constantly asserting its authenticity using artficial means. The new style seems far less truthful than the Nouvelle Vague it resembles when it is revealed that the director cut between scores of separate camera setups for the musical numbers. The cumulative effect of performance and directorial gaze does, however, secure the required emotional response before the end.
Country: DK/FR/SV/IT/GER/NOR/NL/ICE/FIN/GB/US
Technical: col/scope 140m
Director: Lars von Trier
Cast: Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare, Joel Grey, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier
Synopsis:
Struck with encroaching blindness, a Czechoslovakian single mother in America works and saves feverishly to pay for an operation designed to preserve her son from the same fate. Her love of music and dance carries her through the most difficult of times, even when accused of murder she is faced with the scaffold.
Review:
As in Breaking the Waves the director employs handheld Dogma techniques, with more jumpcuts than ever, (very painful on the eyes at this length and in this format). He also livens up the flat digital colour for the musical interludes, which are Billy Liar-like fantasy. It is a brave, some would say brazen, enterprise which tugs calculatedly at the heartstrings while constantly asserting its authenticity using artficial means. The new style seems far less truthful than the Nouvelle Vague it resembles when it is revealed that the director cut between scores of separate camera setups for the musical numbers. The cumulative effect of performance and directorial gaze does, however, secure the required emotional response before the end.