Dancer in the Dark

Selma is a young Czech mother living in Washington state in the early 1960s. How she loves musicals! Alas, she is going blind, and this is threatening her job (not to say her limbs) at the local factory, where she is friends with Cathy, who is a bit flummoxed by Selma's increasing workload, which includes pinning hairpins to unbent cardboard as a side job.

Selma lives with her understandably ungrateful 12-year-old delinquent son in a mobile trailer on the property of a local sheriff and his happy-go-lucky wife. One day, the sheriff reveals a dark secret to Selma, and being the type to cement friendships, she tells him a secret, too: that she is going blind. Life spirals downard for her after this revelation, but Selma is resolute in protecting her friend's secret.

Cathy, who grows increasingly frustrated with Selma's decisions, comes to realize Selma's methodology was right after all, and in the gripping final moments of the film, she tells Selma that she did right.

This is a curious, highly depressing, yet exhilarating film (with various experimental camera techniques) about the power of friendship and maternal love -- not to be watched alone! 

Memorable quotes for Dancer in the Dark :

Selma: In a musical, nothing dreadful ever happens.

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Lines on screen: They say it's the last song. They don't know us, you see. It's only the last song if we let it be.

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Selma: I listen to my heart.

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Selma: [talking about musical films] You know when the camera goes really big and it comes up out of the roof, and you just know that it's gonna end? I hate that.

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Selma: You like the movies, don't you?
Bill Houston: I love the movies. I just love the musicals.
Selma: But isn't it annoying when they do the last song in the films?
Bill Houston: Why?
Selma: Because you just know when it goes really big... and the camera goes like out of the roof... and you just know it's going to end. I hate that. I would leave just after the next to last song... and the film would just go on forever

Jeff: [referring to Gene] Why did you have him? You knew he would have the same disease as you.
Selma: I just wanted to hold a little baby.

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Selma: There's no more to see...

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Selma: [singing] This isn't the last song, there's no violin, the choir is quiet, and no one takes a spin, this is the next to last song, and that's all...

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Jeff: Can't you see, can you?
Selma: What is there to see?