Breaking the Waves

1996 "Love is a mighty power."
Breaking the Waves
7.8| 2h38m| R| en| More Info
Released: 13 November 1996 Released
Producted By: Zentropa Entertainments
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

In a small and conservative Scottish village, a woman's paralytic husband convinces her to have extramarital intercourse so she can tell him about it and give him a reason for living.

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classicsoncall Director Lars von Trier never fails to shock and challenge one's sensibilities with his pictures. "Dancer in the Dark" and "Dogville" are two recent examples I've viewed, but this is one that will probably make you the most squeamish. In it, actress Emily Watson portrays Bess McNeil, a woman who's slavish devotion to a near comatose husband exposes her to shame and ridicule when she attempts to honor his wish that she see other men and report back to him on her sexual escapades. Though at one point, husband Jan (Stellan Skarsgård) rethinks his idea and writes a conflicted note stating "Let me die. I'm evil in head". That would have been enough, one would think, to deter Bess from proceeding with her destructive behavior. At a certain point, one must come to grips with the idea that perhaps the simple minded Bess actually does suffer from some form of mental illness to invite the seamy and destructive relationships she encounters. Why else return to the same ship to encounter a pair of thugs who violated her once before?Another reviewer for the film here on IMDb writes, "This sounds like a grungy tale, but von Trier tells it with such humanism and focus on his themes that we never feel like he is rubbing our faces in drear." Well excuse me, but that's exactly how I felt about the picture, so you'll have to leave me out of the foregoing generalization. Personally, if one's own perverse definition of love and how it can lead to destructive behaviors is your thing, then have at it, but this film does nothing for me, demonstrating once again that von Trier's film making appeals to a segment of film goers that don't mind immersing themselves in sordid and pointless dramas. If there's one thing about the picture that's worth mentioning on a positive note, it would actually be Emily Watson's role in the story, as she arcs her character through a complex set of emotions which leaves the patient viewer drained and dispirited. If that was von Trier's objective, then I guess he succeeded. And by the way, the near comatose husband, who's doctors insisted he would never walk again, closes out the picture hobbling around on crutches, hearing imaginary bells that aren't really there. Best not try to explain it.
quinimdb "Breaking the Waves" is about a woman, Bess, who died simply for being wholly good. She at first devoted herself to God and the Christian church, but when she meets Jan, she slowly grows away from the church and realizes true love can only be given to another human. Jan is not a Christian, but when Bess gets married to him, they do it at her church. To their surprise, there are no church bells once they get married. "We don't need bells to worship God" states one of the ministers. Jan is still surprised, and Bess states "I like church bells." She begins a slow descent when she prays for her husband to come home, who leaves every week for work, which tears her apart to be away from him, since, devoting herself to Christianity, this is the first time she feels real love for another human, and of course makes love with him. He does come back, but he becomes paralyzed. He wants Bess to move on and find a new man to love because he knows he must die, and even attempts suicide. Once he is told Bess will do anything to make him happy, he asks her to make love to a man and tell him about it since he can't experience it anymore. I believe this was at first done because he wanted her to find someone new to love, and he now knew she didn't care about herself but would do anything for him, but Jan realizes it is slowly devolving into him exploiting her for his own benefit, and he begins to hate himself for it. He asks to die, and says he's sick, but Bess cannot stop loving him. She begins to lose contact with her God, and cares only for Jan. She practically becomes a hooker on accident, and after she is abused on one of her most desperate attempts, she is sent to rehab, but escapes before she is even inside the building. She tries to go back to the church, but is then thrown out for stating that you can't love a "word" but only a person. She lays on the ground as the kids she once befriended throw rocks at her. The priest stares at her, but leaves and refuses to help. At that moment she has nothing. Then her sister comes to her. She feels love from her sister once again, and must've remembered about her love for Jan, because she asks her sister to pray for Jans recovery and for him to walk again (which is almost impossible) and goes back to the boat where she was abused before. But this time, on her way there, she feels God again. She has hope and believes in love. She is brought to the hospital with knife wounds all over her body. She did this to see Jan for one last time to make sure he is recovering, but he isn't. She is afraid, and she dies.Things may seem very hopeless at this point, and they are. At that point. After this, we see a court hearing, and Dr. Richardson diagnoses her as being good, and to our surprise, Jan is sitting up in a chair there. We see him using his crutches to walk around, showing he was healed. The church, however, has decided that they must bury Bess as a sinner and condemn her to hell. Bess's sister comes and proclaims they don't have the power to do that, and they don't. Jan and his friends steal her body so she doesn't have to go out that way, and they dump her into the ocean. But the next day, when they wake up, they walk outside and, despite their being nothing on the radar, they hear church bells in the sky. We see a shot from the church bells in the sky. Bess is in peace. This shows that no laws from a book can define the goodness of a human being. Bess was a completely selfless human, but she ended up being condemned by the church she once supported for being a "sinner". God sits in the sky and laughs at these people who have never felt true love, just as Bess does, who finally got her church bells.As Bo Burnham says in his song "From God's Perspective", "My love's the type of thing you have to earn, but when you earn it, you won't need it". Bess earned it, but didn't need it. She was nothing but "good", as Dr. Richardson says.
sharky_55 If I had a dollar for every time 'devastating' was used to describe a Lars Von Trier film, I would have...well, a lot of money. He continually relishes on images that shock the mind and soul. He is admired for his ability to not hold back. His ties to Dogme 95 are evident, but paradoxically, here he makes it a deliberate stylistic endeavour; his favoured nervy, hand-held style, the washed out palette, the graininess of the image. How ironic that in the pursuit of authenticity and simplicity he had taken an extra, unnatural step - the filtered look of the film was achieved by transferring the stock to video and back again. The desired impression is the guise of naturalism and realism, as if we were observing the events ourselves. But this collapses on itself when we are the only ones in the scene with Emily Watson. Suddenly the fragility takes on a different meaning. We become perverse intruders on a mental breakdown, but there is no one here save for the audience, so it is performance we are witnessing. To her credit, Watson keeps us guessing whilst the script is more direct. It presents to us a child, without any tangible prospects or abilities, who throws tantrums when control is wrested away from her because of the real world's demands. She counts the days on the calendar until her beloved Jan returns, but this isn't enough - Von Trier feels the need to throw in a crude, stick figure drawing as though she is a kindergartner with a crush. The first time she responds to her own prayer in a deeper intonation (God is Irish, apparently), it is mildly humorous, but by the end it is tragic. Watson is good enough to seed doubt in our minds. When her faith begins to waver, these prayers lose their mystical quality and just once, she responds as God in her normal voice. She shows glimpses of Bess' logic and reason when she wrests with her own conscience and selfishness. In the very early beginnings, she acknowledges the camera and invites us into her mind, cheekily grinning and almost winking at what is to come. There are brief moments of heart and stability; see how Watson makes phone sex endearing and cute, how she pauses and hesitates to be explicit, because her religion has coded her against it. So to dive into the deep end, and go against these teachings must demonstrate incredible strength and willpower, must it not? A oft criticism of the film is that it treats Bess not only in childish terms, but as a surrogate for battering, being shoved along without agency and subject to continually harsher abuse. She is confined by the patriarchal constructs of the religion, raised a virgin and cursed to hell for her sins (but those sins which are an act of bravery and pure love). A gender reversal would not only be illogical and radical, but conjure none of the shock. Von Trier is vague about the origins of her development and capabilities, and hastily sidesteps this dilemma. He answers the true question with his final sequences, which are steeped in Christian allegory: the public denouncing by the church (the Pharisees), the Christlike sacrifice by taking the burden of sin, the desecration of the grave for and the spiritual rebirth (at sea), with the bells signalling the miracles that we have witnessed. It's religious propaganda, and not subtle at that; Bess must be put through figurative hell (the result of her own sin) before she finally gains her martyrdom. And it is typical Von Trier, a cruel joke played by a cruel god. She dies with the knowledge that she has failed her husband, and is going to literal hell. Only then can Jan begin to walk again.
allyatherton Starring Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard and Katrin Cartlidge.Written by Lars Von Trier, Peter Asmussen and David Pirie.Directed by Lars Von Trier.A totally absorbing movie.I liked everything about it from the unbelievably good acting performance by Emily Watson to the location filming, cinematography and well crafted plot. There's something old school about this one, an old fashioned movie without all the bells and whistles that spoil some films. The haunting remote location filming adds to the emotional, dark and at times, humorous story.It's a long one and maybe a bit too long and there are a couple of plot holes that don't really ruin this great movie. For example the hospital in the story seems to have only one Doctor who is responsible for life saving surgery and also mental health reviews and probably everything else and the sister of the main female lead seems at times to be the only nurse in the hospital. But overall this is a big fat ten out of ten for me. A wonderfully emotional roller coaster of a movie that covers everything from love to heartbreak to religious bigotry.On a sad note I was trying to work out where I'd seen the young woman who plays the sister in the movie and now I can only guess I remember her from Brookside, which I watched on and off during the eighties. I was shocked and saddened to learn that this talented and beautiful actress died a few years after filming this. Such a shame. I'm sure she would have gone on to achieve a lot more in acting and directing.10/10