Breaking the Waves

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Summary: Need to know
Review: Actually I haven't seen this movie but would like to watch it first and then make a rating for this.

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Summary: A Brilliant Film-One of the Best of the Nineties!
Review: Lars Von Trier's stunning film was one of the best of the Nineties, an extraordinary and intense cinematice experience. It's the kind of film Ingmar Bergman made in the Sixties. A challenging film exploring the Spiritial side. Emily Watson is incredible in a one of a kind role, she should have won the Oscar for Best Actress. Highly recommeded!

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Summary: QUICKY REVUE
Review: Lars von Trier's masterpiece, Breaking the Waves, is one of the few forays into the world of voyeurism and has raised the bar for other low budget and highly artistic efforts. While Sweden's The Celebration came damned close, its characters failed to soar to the heights that von Triers' characters have attained.

From Emily Watson's painfully simple, classic, and unmannered style hails a character so real and so cinematically complete that at times its hard to tell whos contributing MORE -- von Trier or the actress. Its amazing. A movie that feels out the essence of human nature as this one does is not to be missed. Its one of the best films I've seen.

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Summary: silent bells ring in the sky
Review: If I had to pick two films in this world that express my view and feelings on the western religion, they would be Scorsese's "Last Temptation of Christ" and surely, Lars von Trier's "Breaking the Waves".

Von Trier's film revolves around the actions of a young girl named Bess Mcneill (Emily Watson) living in a remote Irish coastal village, controlled by a Calvinist Order. The town and its people are snagged like dogs to the conservative ties of the church, and Bess (who according to her sister: "isn't right in the head") seems to quell a rebelious silence within herself; the need to feel something real. She discovers this in her new husband Jan, who intrigued by her innocence and intensity, offers her unconditional love packed newly in a sensual form.

Sure, like many movies "Breaking the Waves" is underlyed by how we should question the right of an institution to inform one what to be told and how feel, but "Breaking the Waves" really questions who would care about us in life.

Who would feel at a loss if you were to sacrifice for something or someone? It's the closing note at the end of Von Trier's film, as Bess is given a funeral by the Calvinist elders, in which she will be "sent to hell for her ghastly sins." Later, Bess'body is stolen by Jan, who miraculously rehabilitated, grants her a proper death at sea amongst the swelling waves. And the scene that follows is the most beautiful piece of cinemascope I have ever witnessed.

It's this that seperates the ones who actually cared about Bess (Jan, her sister in-law, her docter [strangely enough her mother doesn't shed a single tear of grief]) and the one's who just couldn't or wouldn't understand.

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Summary: One of the best of the 90's
Review: Breaking the Waves is about a newly wed couple's emotional and sexual trauma after the husband becomes injured on an oil rig. Emily Watson is astounding as the wife who gives herself to other men at the request of her bed-ridden husband. It's impossible to describe how excellent this movie really is. But if you liked subject matter of "The Piano" then you will understand what I'm talking about.

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Summary: The Devil Works In Mysterious Ways
Review: The place is a barren,grim and ugly town in Scotland. Bess(Emily Watson), a seemingly retarded and meek girl is in a state of euphoria becuase she, against all expectations, is getting married. The groom is an oil-rig worker Jan (Stellan Skarsgard), and as an outsider, the locals look on him with great suspicion. But Bess is so in love with Jan that she can't wait to get home to consumate their marriage, at the wedding she pulls him into the lady's room where they have sex. Their relationship is deeply passionatte, but tragedy strikes when Jan is injured and paralysed from the neck down. He then asks his loving wife to perform sexual acts with strangers and tell him about it.

It is not clearly explained why he asks her to do this, but my guess is, that deep down he really believes that her sacrifice could actually save him. That God really could trade her standing in this closed community for his life.

I once watched two fifty year old men sit down and debate weather it was allright from a Religious stand point to blow air on soup inorder to cool it down. Was it allright? Or will this lack of patience offend God? The elders of Bess's community are similar, they "love the word and love the law", they consider their Bible to be a manual for living effectivly reducing the Faith to physical action. "How can you love a word" Bess asks them.

The film is anchored by an incredible performance by Emily Watson as Bess. Yes, she is mentally challenged but not without a sense of humour or a certain insight. "I was always stupid, but I have one talent, my talent is faith" she says. And the way director Lars Von Trier shoots the film gives it a faux documentary feeling. His style breaksdown the barriers of film, making the characters that much closer to the audience. He is adhering to the Dogme 95 manifesto he drafted with a few others Danish film-makers which allows him only handheld cameras and available light, but he is a liar when he claims that cost is the reason for this. His upclose style is emotionally exhausting and grimly beautiful. His willingness to show explicit nudity only adds to the realism of the film, no strategically placed objects here.

It is strange when you consider what "religious" people do around the world, they claim to understand God. Perhaps life's strangest irony that a good number of "the men of God" do the Devil's work. Only Bess with her big heart understands that a God who created the universe couldn't careless weather all not you blow air onto soup.

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Summary: classics songs not often heard
Review: I saw the movie and thought that the music really made the movie come alive. Great songs that touch the heart. Spellbinding movie and great songs that pass over the waves.

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Summary: Genuinely searing and probing
Review: It's always amusing to see ads for dreck like "Where the Heart Is" and "Here on Earth" with (usually) out-of-context reviewers' quotes promising "sheer emotional power!" and "a more moving experience you won't find on the big screen!" Because the fact of the matter is, calling any of those films "emotional" after "Breaking the Waves" is like calling a firecracker "loud" after an atomic bomb test.

It's difficult to believe, but this was Emily Watson's debut performance (taking over after Helena Bonham Carter backed out), and it's impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. The camera's lingering close-ups of her perpetually wide eyes -- always focused, seemingly, on something just out of the view of any other character in the film and, indeed, the audience itself -- recall the best work of Dreyer (to whom the film owes an obvious debt). But the film also has a style all its own, the hand-held camerawork (a direct antecedent of the "Dogme" movement Von Trier would later co-found) giving it the immediacy of a home movie. Coupled with Watson's brilliant performance, only the most cold-hearted viewer cannot help but be moved by the trials of poor, simple Bess.

The above description probably makes the film sound like one of those blatant tearjerkers, the kind that makes most folks go "aww!" and the more cynical groan at the obvious sentimentality. And to a certain extent, you're right, but to a greater extent, you're wrong. Bess is, to a large degree, responsible for the fate that befalls her, although her handicap (she's quite obviously mentally retarded in some way, although few reviews and plot synopses seem to mention this) makes it difficult for the viewer to chastise her behavior. Bess is a good-hearted, somewhat naive girl -- barely a woman at all -- who is unable or unwilling to deal with the mitigating circumstances her life takes and retreats into a world of delusion.

But is it a delusion? Or is Bess really helping her husband and not just thinking she is? The miracle of "Breaking the Waves" is that it manages to explore faith without ever questioning it (the existence of God is never really in doubt as far as the plot is concerned, in spite of Bess' unstable mental condition). Is believing something enough to make it manifest? This is an important issue in our cynical modern world, yet is so rarely dealt with in cinema. Compare this with the only other recent film to tackle this question -- the middling Steve Martin comedy-drama "Leap of Faith" -- and it's obvious what a treasure "Breaking the Waves" truly is.

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Summary: gravity and grace
Review: 200 adjectives. put them in a review. cry your eyes out. buy a camera. looks easy don't it? don't believe it.

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Summary: A wonderful, masterful film
Review: I had been interested in this film since Emily Watson got the Oscar nomination for it, but I finally got around to renting it last weekend after hearing the buzz that the director's latest film, Dancer In The Dark, had gotten at Cannes. It is now one of my favorite films.

I won't go too much into the plot, because descriptions of this film can hardly touch on the actual experience of watching it for yourself. But I can say this much: Emily Watson deserved the Oscar that was taken away from her in favor of Frances McDormand (I guess a fakey Midwest accent can go a long way). Her portrayal of Bess is unforgettable and heart-wrenching. You think you are actually witnessing this girl's descent into madness and pain, instead of watching some actress go through the motions. I cannot think of another actress who could have done this as well as Emily.

The film's visual style is not like 'normal' cinema, and at times seems like it was made on a camcorder rather than a 'movie camera.' Rather than feeling like a Blair Witch camcorder feeling, you feel more like a witness of what is going on, a silent character who just absorbs everything that happens.

There is no score, except for the pieces that pop up after chapters in the picture, which move you further into the picture. These chapter breaks are rather stunning scenes of nature with 70's music playing in the background. This may detract a bit from the picture if you are overly critical, but I consider them to be short breathers between the drama that unfolds in the film.

Be forewarned, though: This film has quite a bit of sexual content. People who do not like that should probably stay away. Everybody else should watch this film.