Breaking the Waves (1996)

Undescribable Perfection

From my favorite movies..

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

When Roger arrives on the scene to praise a movie that's hardly known or recommended, you just know he's doing his usual and relentless routine of The Emperor's New Clothes. Seriously, the man is a total fool. He even looks like one. It's nothing to do with rating a movie fairly or intelligently, and everything to do with him trying to convince people that he is an intellectual/movie expert, which he is not. He's just a rather silly man who should have become a wine taster—another phony-baloney load of pretentious crap.This film is ridiculous. Like most bad movies, the two most serious flaws are the pacing and the plot. Both are awful here. Some mentally ill woman (who talks to God, and then replies to herself, of course) is made even more mentally unstable when her crippled husband decides he wants her to romp with every man she can, so he can get off on the details. And she does. It sounds like some sort of bad porn movie, doesn't it? But, apparently, that's not what the writers were going for.There isn't any believability to it, either. She just does it—no questions asked. No-one does a thing about it, despite the fact the whole village knows she needs help. The churchgoers throw her out. But the worst part of all this is that I've just summed up the entire movie for you. That's what they shove down your throat for two and a half hours. But I suppose it's better than what she was having shoved down her throat for much longer. The ending is the icing on the cake, which seems to be the pattern with the worst culprits. I.e., Vertigo, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Fight Club. Nothing turns Roger Ebert on more than a film about nothing. Believe that, because it's true.There really isn't anything about this film that makes one want to watch it a second time, unless you get off on it, like the woman's husband. It's just a plodding monstrosity of a film, and the good acting cannot save it. I am so tired of movies as bad and pretentious as this one getting high ratings simply because of liars, half-wits, and con men.1/5

At first glance, "Breaking the Waves" may appear to be slow paced and full of unnecessary exposition. However, as the film unfolds, each scene comes together like pictures in a photo book. Protagonist Bess McNeil is an innocent and naive woman, who falls madly in love with a man named Jan Nyman. After the two are married, Jan is sent off to work at an oil rig, leaving Bess all alone. Bess pines for her husband and prays for his safe return to the point where her family and friends call her selfish for not readily accepting circumstances. Tragedy strikes when Jan is badly injured in an accident and is feared to never recover. In order to keep his beloved wife happy (and in a drug induced delusional state), Jan encourages Bess to sleep with other men in order to feel the love and affection that he can not show her. Torn between her devotion to her husband and the strict religious convictions she had been raised with, Bess struggles to fulfill Jan's wishes and maintain her role as a devoted child of God. Ultimately Bess chooses to serve her husband, believing that God would want her to make him happy. Bess feels no love from her encounters with other men, longing only for the touch of her husband. The task kills her inside, but she lies to Jan, saying that she enjoyed the experiences. She soon finds herself shunned from her community as her attempts to serve her husband, her community and God fall apart and ultimately lead to her exile and death at the hands of a violent gang who sexual assault and murder her. As she prays for guidance, it becomes clear that there are no answers and the choice between being a good wife and a good Christian can not be compromised. We're given a small solace at the end of the film, when Jan (recovered from his injury) learns of his wife's death and the loyalty she showed him pays tribute to Bess after the church refuses to show such respect. "Breaking the Waves" is a tragedy of conscience, in which no matter what choice is made, heart break is the inevitable outcome. It show cases the conflict between following the strict and unwavering doctrines of religion and doing what is right in unusual and unforeseeable circumstances.

An intelligent but slow commentary on the battle between religion and science. It is both deeply mocking and faithful to the former but not without a sour aftertaste.2. Terrible. Never, never, never again.4. Average, mildly entertained but unaffected. The first viewing was enough.6. Willfully would rewatch and get excited when brought up casually in conversation. 8. Force related conversations because of a need to talk about, promote and relive the film.10. A work of art that radically develops one's self comically, emotionally, morally or imaginatively with lasting effect.

Bess McNeil (Emily Watson) is a simple naive girl in a religious community in northern Scotland. It's so conservative that they don't even have church bells and women aren't allowed to talk in the services. She is an emotional simpleton marrying Danish oil-rig worker Jan Nyman (Stellan Skarsgård). He breaks his neck on a rig accident. He convinces Bess to take another lover and he directs her to ever more deviant sexual adventures. She believes that she's doing Godly work and it would help him recover.It's a great performance from newcomer Emily Watson. She nails the wide eyed innocence of her simpleton character and her almost schizophrenic exchanges with god. The only problem I have with the movie is director Lars von Trier's indie camera style. I can live with the slow quiet pacing. I don't mind anything but the wild quick camera movements. The shaky camera worn me out and it made me dizzy. I wonder if the movie would be better with edits and smoother slower camera work.