bjork meets marx: dancer in the dark

"The estrangement of man, and in fact every relationship in which man stands to himself, is first realized and expressed in the relationship in which a man stands to other men" -Marx

What is the significance of the hand-held camera in Dancer in the Dark?

I found the hand-held camera to be one of the most crucial elements of the film, directed by Lars Von Trier, as it determines the relationship between the viewer and the other characters. The hand-held camera erases the illusion of detachment, and renders the viewer as a character of sorts: a silent character, unnoticed by the other characters, yet a character nevertheless. When we see the protagonist, Selma, tediously navigating her way home via the train tracks because of her blindness, we stand witness beside her friends Kathy and Jeff, similarly powerless to help her, aghast at the spectacle of her looming lack of sight. On the gallows before Selma is hanged, we stand shaky beside the other nervous guards as she strapped to the board and hanged in mid-song.

The fact that we, the viewers, are rendered into these passive witnesses makes us very much a part of the story and facilitates the establishment of a relationship between ourselves and the other characters in the film. And the true horror of Dancer is that we are mute witnesses, impotent to straighten out the misunderstandings, right the wrongs, prevent the tragedies. In a way, we are the opposite of Selma: we can see everything that she can not see, and yet where she is constantly affecting the lives of those around her (some for the better, like her son, and some for the worse, like Bill, the cop she kills) we are unable to affect anything, but simply to watch the plot play out.

What is the significance of this neutered relationship, as it relates to Marx?

In the Marxist formulation, encapsulated in the quote above, we are all estranged from each other. And we see this in the film: Selma's refusal to let Jeff give her a ride, the perversity of Bill's crime against Selma, Kathy's inability to reason with her friend Selma, the reduction of factory works and court sketch artists to their roles, deprived even of a name. In a similar fashion, Trier's film condemns our own distance from Selma, holds us accountable for the way we go about our lives. The final words of the film, occupying a sudden silence, read like a epitaph, honoring Selma in death despite our inability to help her in life.