Björk plays Selma, a young Czech immigrant attempting to raise her son in 1960s rural America. A factory worker, she suffers from a degenerative eye disease. The condition is hereditary and so she has saved enough money for her son to have an operation that will prevent her son from contracting it. However, she is fooled by the seeming kindness of strangers and set on a course to tragedy. It’s the stuff of melodrama, but cinematic wild boy Lars Von Trier transforms it into a musical, albeit one where factory machinery, trains, footsteps and household objects provide the rhythms. The Icelandic pop queen is perfectly cast (she won the Best Actress prize at Cannes), Catherine Deneuve is magnetic as her friend and the whole thing plays out like a surreal dream.
