Dancer in the Dark
Denmark/France/Sweden, 2000.
Directed and written by Lars von Trier. Starring Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare, Vincent Paterson. Music by Björk. Produced by Vibeke Windeløv.
In English, 140 minutes, rated R. Fine Line Features

Highly acclaimed by critics and winner of a Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, Dancer in the Dark is one of the best movies I have seen, yet it cannot be viewed simply as entertainment. Set in Washington State in 1964, the movie centers on Selma (Björk), an immigrant Czech factory worker. She is a courageous single mother who is slowly going blind; her goal is to save enough money to pay for the operation that will prevent her son from the same hereditary fate.

Unveiling the spiritual nature of Dead Man
Germany/Japan/USA, 1995. Directed by Jim Jarmusch, written by Jim Jarmusch. Starring Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Lance Henriksen, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Robert Mitchum.
In English, 121 minutes. Miramax.

"It is preferable not to travel with a dead man," Henri Michaux. Death and travel, Blake as Death, a death voyage, death as a journey, all these variations on the two basic themes are present in Dead Man. The narrative arc recounts the journey taken by the main character towards his own demise. But the metaphoric quality of Michaux's sentence suggests a symbolic level of interpretation. As the narrative shows Blake to be quite alive, death is therefore of a spiritual nature rather than a physical one, a death through loss of identity or the loss of the 'essence of being'.