Film Review: Breaking the Waves

Director: Lars von Trier

*possible spoilers*

von Trier's 1996 film is the first in his 'Golden Heart' trilogy which also featured The Idiots and Dancer in the Dark. It was filmed shortly after von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg founded the Dogme 95 movement in cinema which was a manifesto outlining that films should be shot without special effects or elaborate editing to retain the pure qualities of plot, characters and acting. Festen by Vinterberg is one of the other films notable for using these guidelines although Breaking the Waves wasn't shot entirely to this standard. Emily Watson was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Bess and the film was known, like many of von Triers movies, to polarize popular opinion.

Bess McNeill (Emily Watson)

Bess McNeill (Emily Watson) is a deeply religious woman whose the member of a Calvinist church in a small town in the Scottish highlands, she marries Jan (Stellan Skarsgard) whose a Norwegian oil rig worker whose big drinking friends are the antithesis of the local town who are all very mild mannered. When Jan is seriously injured in an accident working on the oil rig it throws chaos into their young relationship as the naive Bess McNeill is forced to face things she isn't prepared for.

This is a very disturbing and thought provoking film, it has some extremely difficult moral questions regarding religion and marriage but is at times difficult to watch. The opening four or five chapters, the film is split into numerous chapters split by a Scottish scene with a popular song played over it, are patiently building up to a final hour of torment and distressing viewing. On several levels von Trier has mirrored, through powerful acting and awesome direction, that small closed societies whose fundamentalist nature brings out hatred in anything or anyone different to their perceived way of living. In this case the naive and slightly simple nature of Bess is exploited by the church to the level that she believes God is talking through her and she acts to his wishes regardless of her own well being, its an alarming sense of foreboding.

Bess with her husband Jan Nyman (Stellan Skarsgard)

Emily Watson is simply outstanding as the inexperienced Bess, it is arguably one of the best and most troubled acting performances I have ever witnessed. The acting around her especially from Skarsgard is good but Watson is what the film is centered around and she produces a performance that is hard to look away from. The true intentions of Jan after the accident are never really explored leaving a confused idea as to what his motive was, the ambiguity gives the whole film a different and more seedy edge. As Bess' conditions worsens as Jan's improves there is no relent from von Trier in her suffering.

It's an incredibly difficult film to judge, it has some incredibly unique ideas that leave you with some very difficult lingering questions as mentioned above but as you watch the final few chapters its hard not to hate what is being shown happening in front of you. von Trier clearly wanted a dramatic ending to the film and he certainly found it but I felt the ending was too bizarre and Bess' motives unclear as to why should we do that, the bells ringing at the end seemed like more of a sick joke than a nice touch. Collecting my thoughts on this movie sees me swinging wildly with intrigue and adoration to downright disgust, it's certainly difficult viewing and it's guaranteed to not leave you indifferent.

2.5/4 Disturbing, thought provoking drama left me filled with admiration and hate.