Manderlay (2005)

Manderlay is a difficult film to understand - what is it trying to say, and more appropriately how do I interpret it?  The thing is I don’t know.  I can describe my impressions as I was watching the film, but because the film has such a unique premise, here’s a bit about it:

Grace, Lars von Trier’s lead character from Dogville, stumbles onto the Manderlay plantation.  Here, in 1933, slavery still exists.  Grace is shocked.  With the help of her father’s gangsters, she frees the slaves.  The Madame of the estate, played by the great Lauren Bacall, dies, and Wilhelm, the eldest slave, does not know what the slaves will do with their new freedom.  Grace decides to stay on at Manderlay and teach the former slaves self-worth and atone for the sins of white Americans.

Von Trier’s premises are always fascinating, if not a bit extreme and slanted.

At first von Trier seems kind of silly or at least simple minded.  Grace is a do-gooder liberal socialite, the slaves dimwitted and ready to follow orders.  The film, or at least Grace and the proudest of the freed slaves, Timothy, hammers home the fact that America had slavery, and that white Americans are to be held responsible.  While this is undeniably true, it seems that von Trier forgot that slavery originated in Europe.  It was the Europeans who took men and women from Africa and enslaved them.  And before that the Egyptians enslaved the Jews.  Slavery is not an American invention.

So at the start of the film I felt it lacked weight.  It seemed untidy and outrageously simple, perhaps because after Nicole Kidman’s brilliant performance as Grace in Dogville, it was difficult to adjust to Bryce Dallas Howard’s interpretation of the character.  But as Grace settles into her role as god of Manderlay and we get to discover the personalities of the former slaves, the film starts to pick up.

Grace, believing some order needs to motivate the bewildered slaves, introduces them to the idea of democracy, the system of America that, as Americans, they should already be well aware of.  She creates a system of voting where each person on the plantation can cast one vote.  That sounds like America, and for me the film became less about slavery and more a microcosm of American life using this extreme premise to prove its points.  The slaves collectively vote on who owns the rake, literally on what time of day it is, and when it is appropriate for people to laugh, late at night being most inconsiderate of others who sleep.  The film became interesting when it was asking serious questions: is democracy feasible?  I don’t think so.  America may be the longest surviving democracy, as a nation we’ve managed it better than other entities before us, but we are not a democracy.  We are a republic, where the majority of the vote passes.  People—some people—do not have individual freedoms.  Well, yes we do, but in our country certain people have less rights or different rights than the majority.  In a democracy this would not be an issue, but because individual rights are voted on by the majority these rights are subject.

This is not a political rant, but von Trier, an outsider, someone who has confessed his mistrust of the American government and American’s perceived (sometimes undeniable) prejudice against minorities is asking serious questions we in this country don’t often ask.  We prefer to see isolated cases or the big picture, saying that slowly things are getting better and we turn a blind eye to the difficult realities of those who have to fight for their freedom.  America is not at war with itself; there should be no causalities.  No one should not suffer in a democracy.

Von Trier should know better, though, that every nation has similar problems.  Perhaps it is America’s ideals that set us apart.  If we aspire to be better, no forgiveness is allotted to our failures, failures we have in abundance as the director points out in a horrifying and oddly beautiful photographic montage of American racism using actual photos.

A film might have the right side of an argument, or argue its misguided case well, but propaganda means nothing if the material is not engaging.  So how effective is Manderlay as a film?

One thing that puzzled me is Grace, her motivations and her ultimate failure (failure in ways that are unpredictable so I hope this sentence wasn’t too much of a spoiler).  As a liberal, I can’t help but be offended when generally liberal ideas are scrutinized, but I have to say in the context of the film the scrutiny is accurate.  Grace is simplistically idealistic and really doesn’t know how the world functions.  She puts too much faith in the concept of freedom and never asks if she should.  I won’t say anymore regarding the ending but I will ask the question: are black people offended by it?  If I were black I think it would raise my eyebrow.  Regardless, I found it fascinating, offensive, but still fascinating.

Manderlay is not 100% successful, but von Trier’s films are always rough around the edges.  The film succeeds in its own convictions.  The acting is exceptional, the casting, too.  Danny Glover has his best role in recent years.  I forgot just how powerful and commanding an actor he is.  He is very impressive, and seeing him together with Lauren Bacall was strange and wonderful.  Bacall is a legend, obviously, and such a claim does a disservice to just how powerful she is, but here her role is very small.  She appeared in Dogville as a different character but in both of her films with Lars von Trier she has not been given anything significant to do.  But her cache is enough.

Bryce Dallas Howard is not Nicole Kidman.  Kidman gave her best performance as Grace in Dogville; she was natural and frail and eager.  Howard’s performance feels like a period piece.  She seems out of it.  She’s trying too hard.  Her delivery is stagy and unconvincing, but as the film went on I accepted her.  She does, like all of von Trier’s leading ladies, some very brave things on screen.  Unlike, Björk or Kidman however, Howard’s raw presence isn’t too impressive.  She’s not bad but not on the level of a Lars von Trier film.  And I’d hate to blame an actor for the unevenness of a film but when the material is this outrageous, the right performance can cement the outrageous in a grounded world.  It doesn’t so much happen in Manderlay.

Manderlay (2005)

Writer / Director: Lars von Trier

Stars: Bryce Dallas Howard, Isaach De Bankole, Danny Glover, Lauren Bacall

Denmark

In English

139 minutes

IMDb link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342735

Breaking the Waves (1996)

Lars von Trier’s work is often very difficult to describe.  A plot summary would often make them sound silly, simple.  In reality his work is the opposite, and even if you disagree with what the director is saying, it is difficult to deny the power of his work.  Breaking the Waves may be in parts too simplistic, but the experience of watching it makes up for its weaker moments.

Bess McNeill is a good Scottish girl marrying an outsider in her community, Jan.  He works the oil rigs, and after their wedding which is as beautiful for Jan as it is for Bess, her husband goes off to work.  Bess is raised in a religious community that seems centuries away from our time.  Women are not allowed to speak aloud in church, cannot attend funerals, and must obey their husbands and the Lord.  Bess spends much of her time talking to God, asking for favors, and she answers herself in God’s words.  I found these moments a bit awkward and very unoriginal, but this has to be accepted as part of Bess’ character.  Is she really hearing the voice of God?  Well, yes.  As long as Bess believes, she does hear.  God promises to send her husband home early, and Jan is in a terrible accident when renders him paralyzed.

I was not as absorbed into Breaking the Waves as I have been with other of von Trier’s films.  The big problem is that the opening scenes or chapters are much too long.  They linger, and while as episodes they are not bad, the plot as I’ve described isn’t really what the film ultimately becomes.  About one hour into the film Jan, now a quadriplegic, asks his loving, devoted wife to sleep with other men.  He himself cannot experience love and if only Bess could tell her about her sexual encounters Jan will feel close to her again.  This is very interesting, at first naughty and in a dark way kinky.  But Bess is not all together.  She struggles with pleasing her husband, torn between his words and the word of her religion.  She asks God and he replies through her she must obey her husband.

She attempts to sleep with her husband’s doctor, a decent and very handsome man, but Bess cannot command her sexuality with intimacy.  She is on a bus, makes eye contact with a dirty old man, and masturbates him.  She tells Jan about it and he seems to get better.  Bess starts to believe in her ability to save her husband.

Von Trier is always asking profound questions, but with Breaking the Waves he is asking more about human beings than God.  Except for the ending, which I will admit to finding farfetched, this is not a religious film.  It is a film about faith; as all good religious films are—they do not presume too much—and it questions what most believe about God.  What is sin?  Can one be a sinner and still be loved by Him?  As God points out through Bess, Mary Magdalene is one of His most beloved creatures.  It is the harsh faith of the village elders, who have the power to banish people from the community, who decide what sin is.  In a way, the film questions whose faith is stronger.  Bess, a simple minded girl, the first heroine in von Trier’s trilogy of naïve and brutalized women, is like a loyal dog.  She does not matter; only the health and life of her husband counts.  The others with this stone and wood building and their bible do not understand what Bess has turned to, and for that they banish her.

Her family cannot understand her either.  Her mother is the first to warn her about banishment.  Her grandfather, a village elder, is non-vocal but his glances and presence impose much.  It is Bess’ sister-in-law, Dodo, who both knows what Bess is doing and why she is doing it.  They are best friends, have been since Dodo’s wedding to Bess’ brother, but his death brought them even closer.  Dodo cannot believe in Bess’ reasons for sleeping with other men.  She is concerned for Bess’ mental health and also for the sick control Jan is having over her.  She is a nurse, is treating Jan, and knows what the drugs and constant surgery is doing to his mind.  For Bess it doesn’t matter; as long as Jan’s condition improves, she will continue to be promiscuous.

Von Trier always gets great performances from his actors.  Emily Watson is probably the most substantial she has ever been on screen.  She has a pixy-like sweetness that really makes Bess a 3-dimensional character when she could have easily been a cartoon.  It’s surprising to discover that this was her first film.  She is intense, too, and very brave.  Often in this director’s movies actresses have to do things ordinary actresses would never be expected of, typically scenes of sexual explicitness, especially when portrayed so honestly.  It is however not the explicitness that makes these performances brilliant but the intensity and commitment by these actresses.  After all they agreed on the roles.  It makes me hopeful for Kristen Dunst’s upcoming turn in von Trier’s Melancholia.

Breaking the Waves seems so alien to most modern people: firstly the idea that the church can play such a significant role in life, and secondly because of the cruelty of being someone of faith.  Though Bess accepts her duty with relative ease, what Jan or God or she herself asks of her is too cruel.  The northern Scottish environment, the lack of technology—the reliance on public phone booths, for example, to receive a call—is so backwards.  So is the idea that a person can be banished from society for actions that others disprove of.  In their eyes Bess is a prostitute.  She dresses like one to attract men, but I never viewed her actions as perverted.  Bizarre, yes, but perhaps because I have walked with her I could understand.  The coldness with which friends and family, in the sake of tradition, greet each other is equally bizarre.  I was wondering if von Trier might have been exaggerating his story to be more effective.  That could be true, but then I remembered that in the Amish community one could be thusly banished, so this extremely religious mentality does exist today.  Most of us, including myself, simply do not experience it.

It’s hard to say whether I liked the picture.  If I had to be honest I would say I didn’t think it was a masterpiece as many have said.  It is in parts too long and boring.  Some of the actions and thoughts the characters have make little sense.  Let me rephrase that—they come out of nowhere.  When the Doctor steps in to talk Bess out of her delusion, he confesses his love.  He speaks and reacts to her indifference the way a lover would, so this “love” isn’t just plutonic, it’s more sensual.  They had only a few scenes prior, and nothing hinted at the Doctor’s feelings.  Ultimately it doesn’t matter.  You should see this film if it sounds interesting to you, and my opinions and observations aside, I think I’ve done a fair job explaining the extensive setup of the story.  It is interesting and worth sitting through to the end.  Those who are religiously inclined might find more topical or at least theological discussions to engage in with the film, but as a movie it is far from perfect.  But von Trier’s films are never perfect.  He is more instinctual, and his films are crude but powerful works of art and his audacity is enough to check out every one of his films at least once.

A final note, two versions of the film exist: an American version and the European version.  It’s obvious which is “censored” and you should seek out the European version.  I cannot describe all the differences except for one, based on a screenshot comparison I found online: during their wedding night, Jan lets Bess explore his body.  Von Trier’s camera lingers on a shot showing actor Stellan Skarsgård’s penis.  In the American version, his hand cups his privates.  If seeing Skarsgård’s junk isn’t your thing, consider this: the character’s hand covering his genitals tells the audience they’re watching a movie.  The image takes us out of the experience, and this is a film where every single image needs to be experienced the way its director intended.

Breaking the Waves (1996)

Director: Lars von Trier

Writer: Lars von Trier, Peter Asmussen and David Pirie

Stars: Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard and Katrin Cartlidge

Denmark

In English

Runtime: 159 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115751/

Medea (1988)

I never realized how sad the story of Medea is.  Not only for the fate of Medea’s children but for her self-directed pain to spite the man who has betrayed her.  Lars von Trier’s film, based on an unproduced screenplay by the great Carl Th. Dreyer, takes a humanist approach to this old tale, and credit is due to both great Danish artists.  Ironically, Medea’s murder of her own children shows her with great compassion.  After hanging her younger son, pained at doing so, when she hoists her older boy and he hangs by the noose, she holds his body up for as long as her arms can manage.

Based on Euripides’ play, Kreon, King of Corinth, in rewarding the adventurer Jason, Medea’s husband and leader of the Argonauts, gives him the hand of his only daughter.

One of the most impressive scenes is when King Kreon tells Medea that she is banished from Corinth.  She is out picking wild grains on a misty field.  The King is apprehensive, and his decision to banish Medea and her children comes from a need to protect his daughter.  Medea loses herself in the mist.  Kreon cannot find her though her voice is everywhere.  They speak as concerned parents.  Medea is fearful for the status and well-being of her children.  “You love yours, and I, mine,” the King tells her as he fumbles on the ground.  Medea, as played by Kristen Olesen, reminds me so much of Renee Falconetti as Joan of Arc.  I think this was a deliberate choice by the director.  Like Dreyer’s handling of St. Joan, Medea comes off here as a human woman.  She is feared, yes, but in her moments alone she expresses great sadness and regret for her betrayal.  In a way, the romance of Medea and Jason is one of the most passionate ever written.  Medea has given all of herself and when she is cast aside, only an equally measured reaction from her lover is enough to satiate her.  She is not selfish, just tied profoundly to Jason and not even the love of her children can substitute.  She must wound him, and this film treats the humanity of this drama most effectively.

Von Trier uses subtle stylistic elements that creep up almost subliminally.  In the scene where Medea decides to sacrifice her children, she and her maid are in the foreground, Medea’s sleeping children in the background.  Medea speaks of the pain of being a woman and a mother as the background gets unnaturally closer... until we are zoomed in on the beautiful faces of her and Jason’s offspring while in the foreground the women remain in scale.  At other times, the colors of the background are monochrome and washed out, and these add a stark bite to the central figure in the foreground of these shots.  Perhaps due to the deteriorating conditions of the source material, I felt these effects were brilliantly conceived and hidden beneath the movie’s ragged textures.

Von Trier shot Medea on video, probably a financially motivated decision but one that aids the film immeasurably.  The movie looks as if it were shot on parchment paper.  Every image is cross-hatched and stained with age.  Like the silent films of Dreyer, Medea feels more like a document of the past rather than a movie.  The rawness of the production is widely evident in the costuming, a reserved, minimalist approach, the set design, and above all the photography.  I love the look of this movie!  Von Trier uses the natural landscape to heighten the scale of his characters’ drama.  From overhead shots of flailing fields to the ever-expressive water, to the poison grains that will cut short the time of Kreon and his daughter, von Trier calls upon a Scandinavian tradition to link man’s struggle with his land.  The result is as naturalistic a film on this subject as can ever be made.  Pasolini’s 1969 version, a better film than this, took a more operatic and villainous approach, but von Trier’s quiet, contemplative cinema breathes fresh life into this archetypal story.

The unavoidable question is who would have made the better film?  Dreyer was a master.  Though his movies are cruder, Lars von Trier has proven himself a film artist.  Both frequently toy with female leads and feminist themes in their work.  We get a sense that the director respects Dreyer.  The opening title cards constitute a personal message from von Trier, who claims he did not try to recreate a Dreyer film but, with due reverence, the film is “a personal interpretation and homage to the master”.  To say which need not bother being said, that we all would have loved for Dreyer to have made at least one more film, is pointless.  Von Trier made this film, and we have von Trier’s Medea.

In a glimpse of the perversity that would follow from this always confrontational director, the scene of Medea’s sacrifice is a sadistic and simultaneously calm experience.  As I said, Medea kills her children with utter sympathy and love.  Her oldest son understands this, and helps Medea with his brother first.  The camera stays on Medea’s face with her son’s torso by her side, and we see the older brother dragging down the boy’s feet to make sure the job is done.  We then see Medea crying at a distance, her dead son hanging over her head, and the live son brings her his noose.  It takes a lot to make a scene like this work.  It lingers and naturally is unpleasant but works so well in this very realistic take on the material.  This scene falls in line with what we have come to expect from von Trier.  Medea is a fitting project in a distinguished career fueled by women who often direct madness and pain at themselves.  I would love to read Dreyer’s script to see where the changes were made, but this film is shockingly human with nearly inhuman deeds and von Trier’s approach is quietly intense.

Images that bookend the film speak volumes of the power that the feuding lovers possess.  Medea begins with its title character lying on the beach.  She knows her husband has taken another wife.  Her hands dig into the sand one claw at a time.  After the end, Jason, upon seeing his hanging children and robbed of the opportunity for revenge, unsheathes his sword and stabs wildly at the earth.  From the very beginning I knew Medea’s hands would win.

Medea (1988)

Director: Lars von Trier

Writers: Lars von Trier, Carl Theodor Dreyer and Preben Thomsen

Based on Euripides' play

Stars: Udo Kier, Kristen Olesen and Henning Jensen

Denmark

In Danish

76 minutes

Medea is available on DVD from Facets.  The DVD is of very poor quality and seems to be OOP, but used copies can be found on Amazon's marketplace:

http://www.amazon.com/Medea-Udo-Kier/dp/B00008RH3T/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1301773677&sr=1-1

I own the Italian Raro Video release with optional English or Italian subtitles.  Find it on Ebay (as I did) or visit either Amazon (USA) or Amazon (UK) to order a secondhand copy:

http://www.amazon.com/Medea-NON-USA-FORMAT-PAL-Reg-0/dp/B001PGXWVM?SubscriptionId=AKIAIWBZRQIIPF7IKQPA&tag=bookb0f-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B001PGXWVM

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Medea-Udo-Kier/dp/B001PMEEX6?SubscriptionId=AKIAIWBZRQIIPF7IKQPA&tag=bookbutlcouk-21&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B001PMEEX6

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095607/

Dancer in the Dark (2000)

Dancer in the Dark is not a good time at the movies.  It’s what Hitchcock might have called a sink to sink picture where, after a hard day of cleaning dishes, a housewife goes to the cinema and sees a character cleaning dishes at the sink.  Except Dancer in the Dark takes part of its inspiration from Hollywood musicals, so the narrative is kind of soapy but overall grim, a hopeless tale of a blind young immigrant mother raising money for an operation that will spare her son from losing his sight.  Director Lars von Trier has a knack for presenting mean-spirited downers that show elements of life we’d like to ignore.  So while imperfect, Dancer in the Dark is as moving a film as they come, but the experience is not cathartic.

Having seen it twice and with the time necessary to process the experience, the one thing I remember most is the performance by Björk.  I’ve seldom seen a searing, open-nerved performance that can match it.  Selma is a good natured and nervous mom, always willing to encourage her friends and pay compliments, and work overtime at several jobs.  The year is 1964 and she and her son have come from Czechoslovakia because of what America promises, promises made in Hollywood musicals, a dream factory of promises that materialize only if you happen to live in the movies.  But a dream can be so desired that what we know of reality, all that we can accept, can be pushed aside for seconds of bliss, the bliss of the dance floor, the bliss of a song.  Selma escapes during moments of adversity, like when overtime at work becomes monotonous or when her sight is fading.  Björk is something to behold—a singer by training, seldom appearing in front of a camera, she manages to do what few other actresses can.  Perhaps because she had the courage to look the part.  She’s not thin, not blonde, her breasts are not on display and her hair and makeup look natural, and in the visual medium that counts more than rehearsal time.  It's more than looks.  Icelandic by birth, she is convincing as a Czech immigrant.  Her tears, panic, every emotion is epitomized.  She conveys the world weariness appropriate having lived in a Soviet state.

Then there is the singing.  Dancer in the Dark is a musical.  Selma’s daydreams take the form of colorful musical numbers.  Björk’s voice is haunting.  She sounds unlike any singer I can name, and her vocal chords seem to be tied to an ancient Icelandic tradition, an extreme folksy sound accenting her already natural folksy voice.  She hits notes and holds them and she is impossible to ignore.

If this film is her cinematic legacy, then so be it.  The singer has said she will never make another movie.  I suspect the pressures from von Trier, known for his volatile and demanding nature, may have had something to do with it, but perhaps Björk is best to quit while she is ahead.  There is not a negative thing I can say; she delivers one of the most impressive performances in cinema history.  It may not be a comprehensive critique but I am simply at a loss.  If she indeed never makes another movie then she will not be overexposed.  She is Selma and Selma is her.  The same can be said of Renee Falconetti in Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, and this is a very great comparison to make but Björk has earned it.  She is quite simply riveting.

The one thing that gets in the way of the material is the musical numbers.  Björk, as I said, has a terrific voice and the songs in the film resonate.  If these numbers were only sung the film might be closer to perfect but because Selma loves musicals, the numbers are all choreographed and staged in an embarrassingly clumsy fashion.  I don’t know how von Trier could have accepted the final product.  An anachronisms: the film is set in 64.  Musicals at the time were very sophisticated and all took a page from Fred Astaire: dance in long shot.  This way we can see the complexity of the body in motion, the skill of the choreographer.  The Dogma 95 style that von Trier co-founded betrays the integrity of golden age musicals: oddly placed camera angles, quick cuts, extreme close-ups and cutaways work against von Trier’s intentions.  A great embarrassment is the first musical number, “Cvalda”.  Every problem I’ve mentioned is on lingering display, compounded by the fact that neither Björk nor Catherine Deneuve can dance.  I understand the limited budget von Trier must have had, but at least rehearse with the lead actors prior to assembling the crew.  Another problem the musical numbers have is color.  I know this from personal experience trying to recreate Technicolor with digital film.  Your first instinct is to saturate in post production.  But Technicolor was a chemical process that had only a limited color range, so the trick to getting great color was with careful costuming and set design / decoration.  Whatever colors you want in the final film need to be present on the set.  Boosting saturation will only intensify ugly colors and make the image grainy, and that is just what happens in Dancer in the Dark.

This is not a problem that ruins the film.  Most of the dancing exists in one or two numbers and most of the songs simply have Björk singing, still however with the color problem.  Another anachronism: the dance numbers are choreographed in a modern style.  Hollywood musicals were more closely related to traditional dance techniques.  There is a formal rigor severely lacking.  Vincent Paterson is created with choreography and he should be embarrassed.  His work does not come off well.

One thing I can relate from when I saw this in a theater: some people were crying.  The tears began with the first violent scene in the picture (I am being vague here because there are some horrifying story twists better to be discovered for yourselves, but you’ll know it when you see it).  The tears were constant till the end.  I understood how these people felt.  The film is so heavy and depressing partly because Selma is such a giving person and so cruelly taken advantage of.  You ache for this character, or at least I did, because when the stuff starts flying the audience and she knows she’s doomed.  It is kind of cathartic in a way because we witness a woman accepting her fate and happy to sacrifice for her son.  The credit goes to Lars von Trier for developing such an inescapable story and for telling it with such sensitive grandiosity.  In the finale, when Deneuve’s character runs up the stairs to Selma (again, being vague) we know that she never would have been allowed to do that or stay as long as she does, but in the tradition of Hollywood storytelling implausibility because the norm.  It’s more satisfying that way.

One thing I did not appreciate in the film is the obvious but slight attacks on America.  Von Trier is known for his severe opinions about our country but I took offense to scenes linking a murder with a middleclass family’s home and the American flag.  Arrogant Americans verbally attack Selma because of her communist country roots, and overall the film paints a less than savory image of average American life.  Any country has faults because people are not perfect.  Perhaps America cannot always (or perhaps seldom does) live up to its ideals but this is, all things considered, a great country and for von Trier to attack it without ever stepping foot in it is bothersome.  So too are the numerous Scandinavian actors faking American accents.  The artifice of von Trier’s film shows most with these actors.  The question I ask though is that if an American filmmaker made the same script would I signal out the anti-Americanism?  Probably not.  Because all that von Trier criticizes is at times accurate, an American filmmaker would be let off the hook, but for those who love this country it is still disturbing to watch.

But von Trier is known for his controversy.  Antichrist is proof of that.  What von Trier has that few living filmmakers have is nerve.  This man is an artist with vision, and that he can offend people is to him a great asset.  Dancer in the Dark is a film that many will not like and some will appreciate.  Its mood will appeal only to a few, like me, who can rightly claim to love depressing films.  It is powerful with a terrific lead performance by Björk and a lot of balls.

Dancer in the Dark (2000)

Director: Lars von Trier

Writer: Lars von Trier

Stars: Björk, Catherine Deneuve and David Morse

Denmark

In English

Runtime: 141 minutes

Purchase Dancer in the Dark on DVD at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Dancer-Dark-New-Line-Platinum/dp/B00003CXKS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300937607&sr=8-1

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168629/