Definately NOT The Bruce Springsteen Song
This is the conversation that I image took place before filming of this movie between Bjork and the writer and director of this movie.
Bjork: I wanna be in a musical, but it must be weird, like me. Oh and it must be 14 hours long!
Writer/Director: Um, Bjork, movies,especially musicals, aren't that long.
Bjork: It must be 14 hours long!!!!!
Writer/Director: How about...2 and a half hours?
Bjork: Can you make it seem like 14 hours long?
Writer/Director: Yeah, we'll just take all the scenes in the movie and make then last 20 minutes each.
Bjork: Yay!!
(Bjork continues to dance naked.)
Like I said, that's how I imagine it went. Now it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you about "Dancer In The Dark".
Starring Bjork, the dude who put Steve Bushemi in the woodchipper in "Fargo", and the dude who was the pilot in "The Langoliers". Bjork plays Selma, but she reminds me of Velma from "Scooby Doo" because of the glasses she wears. (I think Bjork would've made a good Velma. She'd want to wear a dead Scooby Doo across her though...) Selma wears such weird glasses because she is going blind very quickly, but she didn't tell anyone that. Which is a shame cause she works in some kind of metal factory, which causes all kinds of hilarity. She constantly gets in trouble for putting two plates in the machine and not going fast enough and dropping things.
Selma is also a single mother who lives in a trailer that is in the backyard (Front yard?) of a married couple, Bill and...whatever her name was. I don't think it was said. Well anyway, Bill is played by "The Langolier" dude and he confesses a secret to her. I missed what the secret consisted of cause everyone in this damn movie talked so quiet. And I had the volume at full volume too. Anyway, Selma confesses to Bill that she is saving her money from the factory to pay for her son's eye surgery because he too is going blind.
And as if she doesn't have enough on her plate, she is in the musical "The Sound of Music".
I somehow got all this information from the first 45 minutes of the movie. I know it sounds like about 15 minutes of the movie, but they just had to strech it out. Oh, and the very beginning of the movie just showed red globs of something for 5 minutes straight. If you think I'm kidding or exaggerating, rent the movie.
The dude from "Fargo" plays Jeff, a Forest Gump-type dude who is in love with Selma and is always wanting to give her a ride home. The other little plot points in the first 45 minutes include Selma's son, Jean, not going to school, him getting a bike for his birthday, Selma and her friend Cathy talking in a movie theater, and establishing the fact that Selma is blind.
It is after the 45 minute mark in which the movie itself turns into a musical. She decides to work nights at the factory but can't keep up, so her friend Cathy, who can be an uptight bitch at times, takes over. While this is going on, Selma hears the noises in the factory and thinks it's quite musical and decides to sing and dance around. I wonder if the boss made her punch out during this time.
Oh, it was a dream.
Bill tricks Selma into thinking he left her trailer when he didn't and saw her secret stash of money. So the next day, the asshole stole it. Selma went to get it back, but he says no way you weird Icelandic chick who wears swans and beats up on reporters, points a gun at her, and tells his wife, what's her name, that she's in love with him. Then he begs Selma to shoot him and that he won't give up the money until she does. So, well, she does.
Then she sings and resurrects Bill and they dance and paint and hold each other and stuff...
Oh, that was a dream too.
With the money, she pays the doctors for Jean's eye surgery and when she makes the mistake of going to where the rehearsals for "The Sound of Music" are taking place, the police catch her. Of course, no one believes that he asked her to kill her.
While waiting on her fate, she dances with everyone in the court room, including some old guy who she said was her father but wasn't really her father. I didn't understand that part...
Oh, yeah. It was a dream.
She gets found guilty and is gonna get hanged. (I didn't catch where this takes place but since the sentence was hanging, I'm guessing it's Texas) Selma goes to a correctional facility, where she befriends one of the guards...dang she doesn't have a name too. I think Bjork thinks women in America don't have names. Anyway...
All of Selma's friends want a re-trial but it's gonna cost the same amount as the eye surgery for the kid. Selma says "NO!!!" And she said it the only way Bjork can say "NO!!!" So, the kid gets the surgery and the last 20 minutes of the movie just drags on...and on...and on...and on...
Then Selma sings a counting song with the female guard...
Oh, that was a dream too.
Then in the middle of a song, Selma is hung finally.
Now before enraged Bjork fans come after me wearing dead animals and trying to lay a smackdown on me, I really, really, really wanted to like this movie. And I must admit the entire part with Bill wanting Selma to kill him was pretty interesting. And Bjork is a good actress. But the movie really could've been shorter and not so morbid and weird and...oh yeah Bjork is weird and morbid.
I forgot to mention something. The dude from "Fargo", Jeff, sings. Yes, that pale Bruce Willis wannabe guy sings. As does the dude from "The Langoliers". Those two moments, plus hearing The Wife (remember she has no name) sing to Selma "I called the police" are the only three things in this movie I enjoyed a whole lot. Now if there was nudity, that would be a different story.
2 stars.
See What IMDb.com says about "Dancer In The Dark"-
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0168629/