![]() ![]() ![]() Subverted when she is placed in a noiseless isolation cell. ![]() Meaningful Echo: Whenever Selma becomes frightened or frustrated, incidental sounds (pencils scratching, machines grinding) repeat in her head, and she makes a song out of that.Manchild: Selma (some critics have speculated that she or Jeff may have a slight mental handicap).Lyrical Dissonance: Come on, Selma! Just 100 steps!.Killed Mid-Sentence: Selma herself, or mid-song, as it were.The Great Northern never used NOHAB engines, which were built for the European market, but the film-makers thought it was the closest they could get to an American-style diesel. Just Train Wrong: This locomotive ◊ appears in a scene in the movie.Just Eat Gilligan: If Selma had just revealed Bill's secret (and told why she killed him), she would never have been convicted.I Gave My Word: Selma's reason for not Just Eating Gilligan (see below).It's brought to the point of (dark) parody when, right after killing Bill, her musical number has him getting up and joining in! One gets the feeling von Trier's implying that Selma's love of musicals has stuck her head in the clouds, reassuring herself that "everything will work out" (like in a musical). Here, the songs are all in Selma's head, and as such they do NOT resolve things. Genre Deconstruction: A very acidic one, of the "integrated" musical that had characters break out into song in ways that were "integrated" into the narrative as plot points, usually in a manner that resolved the immediate conflict.Face Death with Dignity: Once Selma learns that Gene's operation was successful and her sacrifice wasn't for naught, she quickly calms down and sings one final song with a smile on her face.Everything Is an Instrument: The song "Cvalda", in which the rhythm is inspired by the noise of factory machinery.Her hysteria when the hood is placed over her face delays the execution. However, on the gallows, she becomes terrified, so that she must be strapped to a collapse board. On her way to the gallows, Selma goes to hug the other men on death row while singing to them. Although a sympathetic female prison guard named Brenda tries to comfort her, the other state officials show no feelings and are eager to see her executed. Death Row: Selma, who is wrongly convicted and given the death penalty, is deeply distraught as she awaits her death.Bittersweet Ending: Selma is executed for murdering Bill, but just before she's hanged, she learns that the operation for Gene - for which she chose to spend her savings rather than hire an attorney to clear her name - was successful.Something of a Take That! against capitalism (lampshaded by the prosecutor). Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: The lawyer presents Selma with a Morton's Fork: He has proof that she's innocent, but he'll only take the case if she pays him the money that Bill stole.When Bill steals said fund so as to hide the fact that he is broke from his wife one day, things do not end well. All the money she has been making at the factory is saved as a fund for the operation. Unbeknownst to everyone, Selma is gradually going blind from a hereditary disease, and Gene will eventually suffer the same fate unless she secures an operation for him, hence she has moved to the US. Co-worker Jeff ( Peter Stormare) pursues her romantically, to no avail. She is auditioning for the part of Maria in an adaptation of The Sound of Music, and throughout the film, she slips into daydreams in which she imagines herself and others around her spontaneously enacting musical numbers. Selma loves Hollywood musicals, and sees them at the cinema with her friend, Kathy ( Catherine Deneuve). She lives with her son, Gene Jeek (Vladica Kostic) in a trailer home owned by town policeman Bill Houston (David Morse) and his wife Linda Houston (Cara Seymour), and works at a factory. Björk plays Selma Jeková, a Czech immigrant to the U.S. ![]()
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