Björk makes speaking seem harder than singing, and vulnerability too uneasy to find endearing. Her performance in Dancer in the Dark is worth the distress, even when Lars von Trier’s writing makes us resist it.
Fi1m perspective
In Dancer in the Dark (2000), Björk plays Selma Jezkova as though ordinary conversation requires more effort than singing. Speaking takes work; in the imagined musical numbers, she allows herself a little freedom. We believe her unease because she does not make it consistently appealing. This is acting worth seeking out, though the film keeps asking her to persuade us of feelings its writing has not earned.
Her sparse screen career makes that performance unusually important to any judgement of her acting. Her first feature was The Juniper Tree (1990), an adaptation of a Brothers Grimm tale. Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 9 (2005) brought another combination of acting and her own score, before Robert Eggers cast her as the Seeress in The Northman (2022). There is little here to suggest how she would handle a succession of conventional leads, but Selma is enough to make that an interesting question.
Her own music is crucial to what works in Dancer in the Dark. Everyday noises supply the beginnings of songs, so Selma’s imagined escape has an audible connection to her daily life. We were moved by the change from noise to music because it made her wish for a kinder life so clear. Editors François Gédigier and Molly Malene Stensgaard keep the shifts between drama and fantasy exposed. Those awkward joins help prevent the musical numbers from making her retreat feel too comfortable.
Von Trier’s writing is harder to defend: Selma’s goodness too often becomes permission to arrange another ordeal. Björk cannot make every contrivance credible, and the writing sometimes invites her uncertainty to become a collection of endearing oddities. She resists that invitation by keeping the vulnerability uncomfortable. The performance gives us reasons to care about Selma without requiring us to approve of everything being done to her. See Dancer in the Dark for Björk, with the warning that the film is considerably more determined to cause distress than she needs it to be.
Biography
Björk is an Icelandic actor and musician. She made her feature film debut in The Juniper Tree (1990) and later starred as Selma Jezkova in Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (2000), for which she also composed the soundtrack Selmasongs. She won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for the role.
Her other film appearances include a cameo in Prêt-à-Porter (1994), a role in Drawing Restraint 9 (2005) and a part in The Northman (2022). She began her career in the alternative rock band the Sugarcubes before pursuing solo work and occasional acting projects.
