Perspectives | Why Is "Dancer in the Dark" Postmodern

"Dancer in the Dark" Poster

Dancer in the Dark is a melodrama musical written and directed by the Danish director Lars von Trier in 2000. The movie narrates the story of a Slovakian woman named Selma Jezkova who suffers from poor eyesight and eventually becomes blind. Throughout the narration she experiences unfairness and cruelty of the reality which eventually even leads her to her death. But why is “Dancer in the Dark” postmodern?

1. Meta fiction - “Dancer in the Dark” deals with the conflict between fantasy and reality. Most obviously, this is highlighted by Selma’s musical daydreams, whenever they kick in the colors would appear very bright and exaggerated symbolizing her fantasy as opposed to the reality which is painted in brown and grey colors. According to Selma she loves musicals because there are no dramatic events in contrary to the real world. With this she highlights the fiction within the movie making it clear to the audience that the film is pure fiction.

2. Fragmented - Throughout the whole movie scenes are cut out or skipped. For example when she was practicing dancing in her house and suddenly the audience is presented Kathy her neighbor coming through the door asking how the dance went.

3. Hyper-reality - During Selma’s daydreaming unrealistic things happen as we can see in the scene when she killed Bill. Bill was shot several times in his body and his face was brutally damaged, but when the musical part started he stood up and danced with Selma. In addition in that scene the audience knew that Kathy, Bill’s wife, was gone to call for help she appeared in Selma’s dance.

4. Pastiche - Some music used in “Dancer in the Dark” comes from the movie “The Sound of Music (1965)” such as “My Favourite Things”, “So Long, Farewell” and “Climb Every Mountain” all three written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.

5. Deconstruction - Unlike the typical Hollywood musicals “Dancer in the Dark” has a dark ending. It breaks the expectations of the audience. Usually in musicals the choreography are built in smoothly and without any major “trigger”. In “Dancer in the Dark”  the musical part would kick in whenever Selma would experience a dramatic event such as: going to court, the 107 steps or the murder of Bill.