Dancer in the Dark (2000) on Netflix
Selma Ježková, a Czech immigrant, works in a Washington factory as her sight fails. She saves for an operation to spare her son Gene the same fate, escaping into Hollywood musicals.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.9/10125,223 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes70%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1964, Selma Ježková has come from Czechoslovakia to Washington State with her twelve-year-old son Gene, and they live in poverty in a trailer on the property of Bill Houston, a local police officer, and his wife Linda. Selma works at a factory with her friend Kathy, whom she calls Cvalda, and the shy Jeff pursues her. Selma is slowly losing her sight to a degenerative eye condition, and she saves money for an operation that would keep Gene from the same fate. She takes part in rehearsals of The Sound of Music, goes with Kathy to the cinema to watch Hollywood musicals that Kathy describes to her, and slips into daydreams of her own musical numbers.
Cast
- Vladica Kosticas Gene Jezkova
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dancer in the Dark (2000)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Icelandic singer Björk had almost never acted before, and described the filmmaking process as so emotionally taxing that she did not want to act again. She eventually appeared in Drawing Restraint 9 in 2005 and The Northman in 2022.
- The musical sequences were filmed simultaneously with over 100 digital cameras, so that multiple angles of each performance could be captured and cut together later, shortening the filming schedule.
- A Danish MY class locomotive and one T43, both owned by the Swedish train operator TÅGAB, were painted in the American Great Northern scheme for the film, and were not repainted afterward.
- The song "I've Seen It All", performed and co-written by Björk with Sjón and Trier, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but lost to "Things Have Changed" by Bob Dylan from Wonder Boys.
- Peter Stormare appears in the film, but on the soundtrack album Selmasongs it is Thom Yorke who sings instead of Stormare.
- The film grossed $45.6 million worldwide, including $4.2 million in the United States and Canada, and it was number one at the Japanese box office for three weeks.
