Dancer in the Dark

Lars von Trier’s film closes his Golden Heart trilogy. The musical numbers were shot with around 100 cameras running at once, so every angle of a performance could be caught together and cut later. The rest is handheld and documentary looking. Björk wrote the songs, with von Trier and Sjón on some lyrics. In the film the duet on I’ve Seen It All is sung by Peter Stormare; on the album Selmasongs it is Thom Yorke. Björk had barely acted before and said the shoot was so draining she did not want to act again, then corrected herself: she had never wanted to act at all and made an exception for von Trier. On an Australian review programme the same film took 5 stars from Margaret Pomeranz and 0 from David Stratton. At Cannes it won the Palme d’Or and best actress for Björk; at the 13th European Film Awards, best film and best actress. The last song is sung on the gallows with no accompaniment, and Selma is hanged before the final verse ends, the remaining lines appearing on screen as text. A good fit if you read the musical numbers as a second formal layer on locked off cameras rather than as escape. Not for anyone who expects the songs to soften the pain.