I like the films of Lars von Trier, but I’d forgotten he made Breaking The Waves. A friend of mine mentioned it in the '90s and I made a mental note to see it. Never did though. I met someone in town who raved about this film. The title sounded familiar, as in ‘Hm. That sounds like a film I wanted to see.’ But I’d forgotten everything else. So I watched it.
I should have recognised von Trier’s cinematography, as I had see Celebration. I didn’t, though. As I was watching, I thought the film must have been made in the '70s or early-'80s. The film stock looked like 16mm (actually it was 35mm) and had that certain graininess of earlier decades. The costumes, hair, vehicles, locations… all were '70s-looking. I had no clue it was made in 1996 until I looked it up. And that’s when I saw Lars von Trier’s name. :smack: The penny dropped. That’s why the title sounded familiar!
In a nutshell (some SPOILERS, but I’ll try to keep them to a minimum): Bess (Emily Watson) is a naïve virgin in a small Scottish seaside village. She marries Jan (Stellan Skarsgård), a worker on an off-shore oil rig. They are deeply in love, in spite of the rigid religious codes by which they must live. Bess kneels in the kirk and talks to God. He answers her – she lowers her voice and speaks for God. We find out from her sister-in-law Dodo (Katrin Cartlidge) that she has a mental problem and takes medication. When Jan returns to the oil rig Bess misses him terribly. Ten days before his leave, Bess prays to God to bring him home early. ‘You’re being selfish!’, says ‘God’, ‘Are you sure you want him home early?’ Bess says she loves Jan so much that she can’t wait ten days. Her prayer is answered.
Jan’s neck is broken in an accident. He’s paralysed from the neck down. Jan tells her that the village elders will never grant her a divorce, but she can find a new lover and forget about him. Bess loves Jan deeply and doesn’t want a lover. Jan would rather she forgot about him so that he can die. Apparently in an attempt to get her to find a lover anyway, he tells her that since he can no longer make love with her she should find a lover and come back to tell him the details. It will be as if they were making love together. Bess believes that doing what Jan says is the only way of keeping him alive, so she ineptly goes on the hunt. She feels that by obeying Jan she is going God’s will by enduring the ‘test’. Jan’s condition improves when she gets laid. The doctor (Adrian Rawlins) and Dodo tell her that in cases like Jan’s there are good days and bad days; but Bess knows that her peculiar form of ‘therapy’ is working. Jan explains to the doctor that she has a special ability. ‘I can believe.’
To avoid spoilers in the OP I’ll stop there.
As I said, the film ‘feels’ old. The film stock is grainy, the colours are not vibrant, and there is classic rock during the ‘chapter plates’. Von Trier uses a verité style with a hand-held camera and lots of close-ups that frequently go out of focus. Given the source of the most recent recommendation to see this film, I expected to have to ‘endure’ the viewing. Instead – even not knowing who made it – I found it strangely compelling. I couldn’t stop watching. (Well, I did. A part broke in the VCR. When I opened it and a broken nylon lever and a spring fell out, it worked again.) I really wanted to see how it turned out. I thought the final shot in the film wasn’t… Well, I didn’t feel it ‘fit’. I understand the symbolism and how it related to earlier dialog but taking it literally (and I believe it was meant to be taken literally) it seemed out of place. How would I have done it differently? I haven’t thought about it. But it just didn’t… fit.
So is Breaking The Waves a good film? Hard to say. It was nominated for an Oscar (Best Acress) and won many awards in other festivals. I found the story engaging, and the verité technique worked. (It often doesn’t. Many filmmakers try to use it, but are aping others and don’t quite seem to ‘get it’.) I can see how some people would find it tedious, but I liked it.