Emperors and Dancers in the Dark

The Emperor's New Groove

     I suppose many people don’t consider a Disney film a candidate for weirdness, if only because Disney has become so much a part of our culture, but The Emperor’s New Groove suffers from several irritating cases of split personality. Fun enough, for adults, with its t-v sit-com dialogue, it doesn’t seem to appeal to the younger members of the audience except when characters are plummeting to apparent destruction.  Isn’t one Vertical Limit at a time enough.… and, hey, is there really going to be a market for stuffed llamas?  

     The Emperor's New Groove gets cranked up with an irritating old-fashioned production number, an irritating song (by Sting) irritatingly sung by Tom Jones, about the irritating Emperor (David Spade) trying to maintain his “groove.”  Let’s face it: Disney just don’t do groove, even in a typical Disney Fantasy (Third) World, assumedly South America, but this one is so weakly rooted in its supposed culture and ethnicity that I can’t imagine anyone getting offended (the lesson of Pocohontas?). 

       You can at least see why it was originally called Kingdom of the Sun.  But, after the big production, we lose the concept of “grooviness,” the ungroovy music, and the whole feel of the claustrophobic city.  Instead, we get the strangest buddies-on-the-road story ever to hit film:  selfish, immature emperor accidentally turned into a llama (How much of a stretch was it to have David Spade play a llama?), and amiable peasant Pacha (John Goodman) whose home the emperor was planning to destroy. And then there is the “evil” Yzma (Eartha Kitt) and her bumbling hench-hunk Kronk (Patrick Warburton), more interested in channeling Julia Child than in poisoning Her Hideousness’s enemies’ list.

     Unfortunately, the emperor is so dreadful and Yzma has such a legitimate gripe (she is brusquely fired as the emperor’s advisor) that we don’t know who to root for.  All of this seems to take place in a vacuum.  The typical Disney lushness is missing in the art.  The many little details in masses of faces is also missing.  It all looks like bargain basement Disney.  In fact, the talent here is in the voices: Goodman (who is accumulating quite a collection of impressive little performances), Kitt (if you have such a great voice under contract, why not let her sing?), Spade, and Warburton.  Just wait till it comes out on video, so you can stop the action every time the kids have to go to the restroom, and they won’t step on your dry feet as they keep their pants dry. 

Dancer in the Dark

     From a Disney version of an unrecognizable South America, we jump to Dancer in the Dark,  a Danish (but English language) version of an unrecognizable United States—Lars von Trier’s  musical melodrama and winner of this year’s Palme D’Or (highest award) at the Cannes Film Festival.  I wonder if its working title was Emperor in the Dark or The Dancer Has No Clothes, since it’s such a mess of artsy but sentimental kitsch, musical sequences as irritating as those in the film sharing this review space, and a hearty dose of the cartoonish anti-Americanism so endearing and enduring to European audiences.  Despite its success at Cannes (where it was soundly boo-ed as well), the film has stirred very strong passions among its admirers and detractors alike.

     Dancer in the Dark  tells the story of East European immigrant, Selma (Björk), who is losing her sight because  of an unspecified congenital condition that will also affect her son as well, unless he has an operation.  Selma works at a terrifying factory, doing her best to hide her condition with the help of her friend and fellow factory-drone, Kathy (Catherine Deneuve, still gorgeous and reliable, who handles this anti-type casting with aplomb).  As Selma’s sight fails ever more rapidly, she begins working double shifts to get enough money for her son’s surgery, and through it all continues to rehearse for a production of The Sound of Music, for which she has the lead role of Maria.  

     Then, Selma’s problems really set in—as if she hadn’t had enough already—leading her to commit murder. I kept wishing that Björk, who turns in a great performance, had better material to work with, since Selma is really not a character, just a pawn in a perverse game. For all the art-house aroma, Dancer shows the weakness of plot-driven rather than character-driven film as clearly as any car-chase flick.

     And then, there are the musical numbers.  Selma has envisioned America, maybe life itself, as a musical, and whenever you think things can’t get any more depressing, she fantasizes loud, depressing musical numbers—even on the gallows. Chorus lines and capital punishment?  Gee, this film could add new meaning to the question, “Does she swing?”  Let’s just say that poor Selma (not to mention the audience) needs a new groove.

      Dancer in the Dark, divisive as the 2000 election, gives me a good opportunity to remind you of one of the most enjoyable film sites on the Internet, Rotten Tomatoes, which cheerily divides reviews into “fresh” and “rotten,” with great quotes from each side.