![]() After all, Dancer in the Dark is the last entry in the Golden Hearts trilogy, a collection of films where Lars von Trier immortalized the stories of naïve women, saintly predisposed to suffer and sacrifice themselves. On paper, it's difficult not to read a monstrous amount of misogyny in the scenario. The woman's stubbornness, her unwillingness to reveal what she knows, only precipitates the doomed finale of this tragedy. The ensuing confrontation has a bloody end, sealing Selma's fate. One day, after a factory accident leaves her without a job, the protagonist discovers the surgery money's missing, stolen by the only man who knew her secret. Such ill fates are quick to materialize when Selma confides the reality of her condition to Bill, a local policeman and her landlord. The situation is already prone to a certain level of exploitation, a portrayal of working-class misery whose toothy mouth waters at the idea of more suffering. Desperate to make sure that her child won't suffer the same malady, she's been saving money to pay for a surgery that will hopefully salvage the kid's eyes before they stop working altogether. Unbeknownst to friends, family, doctors, and employers, Selma's sight has deteriorated to the point that she's virtually blind. Splitting her days between work at a kitchen sinks factory and rehearsals for a community theater staging of The Sound of Music, she struggles with vision problems. Shot with rudimentary digital cameras and an aesthetic derived from the Dogme 95 movement, Dancer in the Dark is a postmodern musical about Selma, a musical-loving Czech immigrant living in 1960s America with her son. Nonetheless, when Oscar nomination morning arrived, she wasn't among the Best Actress nominees… It's fair to say that Björk's performance in Dancer in the Dark was one of the most acclaimed acting achievements of 2000. Even some who objected to von Trier's experiment had words of adoration for its star. As the musical hit theaters critics worldwide began to chime in and the praise for Björk's achievement became more mountainous. It's unusual for any Cannes competition title to win more than one award from the main jury, but sometimes it's impossible to deny a performance's magnificence. At the end of the festivities, von Trier would walk away with the Palme D'Or while his leading lady, Icelandic music artist Björk, won the Best Actress prize. Premiering at the 53rd Cannes Film Festival, Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark became one of the most discussed films of 2000.
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