Dancer in the Dark
A heartbreaking performance from avant-pop icon Björk lights up this singular, emotionally wrenching musical from Lars von Trier, who made use of over a hundred handheld digital video cameras to bring a raw immediacy to the story of Selma, a Czech immigrant living in America and working desperately to save her son from the same disease that is slowly taking her sight.
To distract from the crushing reality of her work in a tough rural factory, the loving mother escapes into her imagination and envisions herself in classic Hollywood musicals, a place where illness and poverty are replaced by ecstatic song-and-dance numbers.