Category: EnglishLars von Trier's musical is very intriguing, in fact I can't make up my mind if it was absolute rubbish or if it actually was one short of a work of art.
The movie follows Selma (portrayed by Icelandic singer, Björk Guðmundsdóttir, impressively) who's life revolves around her work place, her son, musicals, tap dancing etc, hard to sum it all up because the character is very well developed so you have to watch the film. Selma saves money for an operation which will prevent her son from being on the receiving end of hereditary blindness. She stays in a trailer owned by the town's top cop. Everything is hunky dory until the couple is about to go bankrupt and Selma's savings are taken away. What happens next follows the crux of the film.
The movie is shot on handy cam with a slight touch of the Dogme 95 look. There's plenty of Björk 's music on display and she along with Lars take the film right to the end, her acting is very strong and poetic. The movie has a very ordinary and almost documentary look and feel to it barring to the parts of the songs where suddenly it's a musical!
Thankfully I have a bank of films I can use when the going gets tough (money wise!).
Recommendation level: 3/5
good to have you back! keep up the reviews :)
ReplyDeleteTo me the story sounds very promising, and it's very special style just gives it the final blow to become something documentary about misery.
ReplyDeleteit seemed a little over the top,though Bjork's songs are a welcome break. bit of a tear jerker, rather odd for lars von trier though, 3 out of 5 for me :p
ReplyDeleteHaha, great to see we still have the same taste :P The latter half is definitely a lot, I reckon if they had done more factory scenes/cinema hall scenes/theatre scenes it would have perhaps been much much better.
ReplyDeleteI liked the flow of the dialogues, didn't seem forced and there's a point where the cop actually looks into the camera for a split second. I like!