Breaking the Waves (1996) Review

 

Breaking the Waves (1996)

Breaking the Waves follows Bess, a childishly naive woman, who, following an accident that left her husband paralyzed, turns to prostitution to save him, believing it to be God’s work. 

I don’t usually have a hard time, in terms of subject matter, with films, but von Trier delivers such a miserable realism to the story of Bess and Jan that would make even the most unflinching of movie-goers shutter at times. Bess, though an adult, was still very much a child at heart and in mind upon her marriage to Jan. He taught her the importance of love, as a gentle husband and lover, setting the tone for what would follow from his accident. A line was uttered early on from Dodo, where Jan could make Bess do anything he wanted and ultimately, she would do it. And in his sickness, he did, wanting to feel love, he needed to be reminded of what it felt or looked like, hence the path Bess would ultimately take, turning her into a martyr for his love and survival. It’s heartbreaking most of all that it took her her final seconds to realize that she, and God, was wrong. 

But in some sick, twisted way, Bess was also right, within the film’s perspective. With every sexual misdeed she performed, Jan seemed to improve and survive to see another day (not saying much though). And of course, after the most brutish encounter of all, that left her dead, Jan not only lived, but regained the ability to walk and live on to hear the bells she so wanted to hear on their wedding day. I figure it as a way of bluntly but honestly saying that God had a hand in the pot after all, for he did make the world, down to it’s last bloody detail.

We get a small but very effective cast, featuring Adrian Rawlins, Katrin Cartlidge, Stellen Skarsgård, and Emily Watson. Watson is so simplistically naive as Bess, something that suits her character, a childish woman beset on loving down to her last molecule. She portrays so much emotion with so few words, knowing just how she feels with each grin or twitch of the face (very reminiscent of Amélie). This depiction makes the events of the film all the more haunting at times, as she is a childlike woman in a terrifying world full of evil people. 

Breaking the Waves, directed by Lars von Trier, is a boldly defiant picture that challenges the viewer to think emotionally and spiritually, not just for the sake of what Bess endures for love, but also in terms of God’s understanding in the light of what others will simply chalk up to good and evil in a world that is cruel and indifferent. 

9.7/10