Well, at least the theater was nice … that’s gotta count for something, I guess. The movie itself, on the other hand, makes you want to do things to the director that aren’t very nice, like sticking a hot poker in an uncomfortable place.

Not that I condone violence towards foreign movie directors, especially ones named Lars, but at the very least, this movie will make you want to write an angry letter to Mr. Von Trier demanding your eight dollars back. I’m still awaiting a reply.

The film stars Bjork as Selma, a single mom who leaves Czechoslovakia with her ten-year-old son and settles in Washington state to get a job working at a sheet metal shop.

Selma is going blind and her son needs to have an operation by the time he’s thirteen or he’ll go blind too. In her spare time, Selma goes to see musicals at a local movie theater because “nothing dreadful ever happens in them.”

Apparently the writers have never seen “Grease 2”, which I still have nightmares about to this day.

Her landlord Bill, a policeman, is going broke and contemplating suicide … but wait, it gets more depressing. Bill steals money that Selma was saving so her son Gene could have an operation and not go blind.

Selma confronts Bill about her cash and the movie starts on such a slow, dull, painful, nauseating downward spiral that leaving the theater was an experience comparable to reaching the bathroom door after a long family trip … to Calcutta.

One of my main problems with this film is that looking at it made me seasick. The picture kept moving up and down and shaking so much that I prayed the cameraman’s day job doesn’t involve handling surgical equipment.

The musical sequences were pretty good, but thanks to the pointless dialogue most of the movie seemed like a bunch of talking between Bjork’s music videos. I spent most of the time trying to figure out if there was a point to this mess of a movie, but after two and a half hours I concluded there was not.

But as I said before, the theater was nice. I’d never been to the Camera One theater on South First Street before I was put through what seemed like eons and eons of torture in the form of “Dancer in the Dark.”

The theater itself is a great place to watch movies … other than the one being reviewed in this article. I thought the screen looked a little small, but that was probably just in my head.

Another cool thing about the Camera One was the music. Usually when you go to a movie and the previews haven’t started yet, you’re put through N’Sync and 98 Degree hell. This place was playing The Doors’ “20th Century Fox” and “Light My Fire.”

You can get four dollars off tickets on Camera’s “Metro Movie Tuesdays” if you clip the coupons found in the free weekly magazine Metro, so check out the theater … but watch something more interesting than “Dancer in the Dark.”

“The Complete, Unabridged History of Gingivitis” comes to mind.