Earlier this decade, Jess and I saw our only Lars Von Trier film, Dancer In The Dark, with wacko singer Bjork as the lead character. Recall it was an ok film, until about 45 minutes into it, when Bjork breaks out into song, and the movie went from solid to laughably bad.
A perfect example of why most musicals fail. The rush to fill in narrative gaps with puffery usually results in a worse film. Granted, I don't recall much of the film except thinking that this is a perfect example of what middle class America calls Eurotrash films- pretentious nonsense masquerading as art.
Here is a scene:
In short, Bjork cannot act, and her singing is, well, let's just say Ella Fitzgerald isn'r turning over in her grave that there's a new queen on the block. Oddly, her character, especially after singing, becomes so annoying that you actually root against her, and feel happy when her character is executed. The only other film I can recall, where I so despised the lead character was Roberto Benigni's moronic character in Life Is Beautiful, where I cheered when the Nazis finally sent him off to sure death in a concentration camp.
However, as much as I wanted Bjork to die, the film accomplishes even this good task in a grating, drawn out fashion.
Here is the end:
Numbers of folks have told me this is Trier's worst film and I should give him a second chance, and some day I will. However, right now, he occupies a place next to Jean Cocteau, Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Luis Bunuel as among the worst and most overrated film directors ever to come out of Europe.
Yes, Antonioni and Fellini, Bergman and Tarr, Tarkovsky and Lang did poor films, but they at least also created masterpieces. I'm not holding my breath that Trier belongs in the latter group, rather than the former.
But, time will tell. Until then, and until every last horror of Dancer In The Dark is expunged, I think I'll bide my time before giving him a second go at my neurons.
