Drama · Crime
Danish
2000 · Directed by Lars von Trier · 140 min
Washington State, 1964. Selma, a Czech immigrant working in a factory, is slowly losing her sight and is determined to protect her young son from the same fate. She escapes her hardships through musicals, imagining song and dance in the rhythms of everyday life. The tone is raw, intimate and emotionally demanding.
Why it matters in cinema history
A defining film of turn-of-the-millennium art cinema. It put digital video and the stripped-down Danish style of the Dogme era to work in a musical, a genre usually associated with polish and studio artifice.
Watch with intention
Watch how the film uses two visual worlds, the rough everyday and the imagined song, to show how Selma sees her life.
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