What, Lars van Trier makes a musical! With Bjork!
Unbelievable and harder to imagine what it might be like. But better still is the cast including Catherine Deneuve & David Morse amongst the usual von Trier selection of international film faces. As well as starring Bjork, it features what became her "Selma Songs" album (Selma being the name of Bjork's character); a surprise to me but totally obvious now when seeing the tracks performed in context.
I had already been warned that it was a seriously emotional film with an overwhelming ending. All of this added up to a "
must see" and it does not disappoint.
Shot with a hand-held camera for a very intimate feel and the rawness of Bjork's performance manages to just keep to the good side of raw. The quality of the supporting cast help lift the film keeping the story-line on track in a wonderfully natural way. The musical sequences emerge out of the dialogue though for me the dream-like dancing allusions didn't quite work. Nonetheless the musical transitions worked really well with many of songs enhancing the emotional temperature of their containing scenes.
Very little of the emotional content is delivered directly through action nor script nor even subtle glances. Rather, as the story proceeds, each new titbit of information adds it own emotional payload and gradually we take on the responsibility for the emotional reaction to events that Selma eschews for her committed life-goal. With the depth and weight of this emotional burden, we yearn for Selma to release us from our torment.
Not for the faint-hearted but go out of your way to watch it!
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
