Dancer in the Dark (2000) - A view

Dancer In the Dark

Decided to watch this after having it recommended to me by a number of people, always with the tagline of 'its a bit weird'. I think this sums it up pretty perfect. Great simple plot that drags you in with a real emotional pull without over doing it, beautiful hand held camera work to bring you into the intensity of the scenes and then the use of multi camera on the singing scenes (Oh yeah thats right its a musical).

Weird camera angles during singing scenes.

Have to admit I am not a big fan of musicals and it is hard to get great acting and great singing you usually are stuck with one or the other (aka Once). I think Björk really pulls it off in this though. Although some of the songs aren't going to be sung in the shower some dark morning in November they are suitable and poignant for the film.

Björk doing her thing.

I was pretty taken a back by the final scene which made me like the film even more due to the fact it is really a critique of musicals. I think this is added on to by the plot of the drama society doing 'The Sound of Music'. Overall great film, not for everyone but well worth a watch. A high 4* on the 5* scale. I feel that perhaps the production quality could have been a little bit better in places but with a rumoured £12million budget I expected better.