Such a frustrating disappointment

Better Late Then Never

Absolutely brilliant

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The only time I watched Lars Von Trier's Breaking the Waves was...a bit over a couple of years ago. I had wanted to see it sometime before, but never got around to it. It is not a film to be watched casually; one should be ready for it. It is a lengthy film clocking in at 2 hours and 39 minutes but it was never boring nor was I expecting it to be.... It didn't really dawn on me how captivating I found it to be until after it was over. It is a deeply painful love story that is also a psychological one. Bess McNeil played by Emily Watson in her debut is so mesmerizing of a performance. She is a newlywed. It is set in the Scottish Highlands in the early 70's. The music certainly sets the tone. She is wildly in love with her husband and there are plenty of intimate moments between them early on. After their long, sensual honeymoon, he goes back to work on an oil platform. She misses him terribly; anticipating phone calls, her moody and erratic behavior. I found her so intriguing because within the span of the film she starts off so innocent and whimsical, only to descend into madness and sadness. She prays for his immediate return. The next day she finds out he has been in an accident, which has resulted in paralysis. She believes her prayer was the reason the accident occurred, that God was punishing her for her selfishness in asking for him to neglect his job and come back to her. She is devastated and I feel I am with her during her rapid, emotional descent. Fearing of never having to walk again and no longer able to perform sexually and mentally affected by the paralysis, he asks her to find a lover. As his condition deteriorates, he urges Bess to make love to other men and tell him the details, as it will be as if they are together and will revitalize his spirits. The entire village is scandalized by these doings, and Bess becomes excommunicated. I also like the character of her sister-in-law played by the late Katrin Cartlidge. She was really the only one who unfailingly stood by her. I did not expect the film to take the turn it did towards the end. I love the style of the film. It is divided into seven different chapters with psychedelic paintings and rock music interludes, one song fittingly being David Bowie's Life On Mars?, offering the audience temporary relief from the intensity of the story. The overall style is grainy and hand- held photography, which was heavily influenced by the realist Dogme 95 movement, of which von Trier was a founding member. I appreciate that type of method and this was before it became commonplace as it is now.

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

Here was a movie surprise, entertaining us all the way, over it's two and a half hours running time, the story sucking you in like a vacuum. This is one movie I've been so engrossed by, I found it hard to switch the VHS off, if to finish watching the 158 film, the next day, giving it some extra minutes, before I clocked off. Never have I been gripped by such an unbelievably real and emotionally charged performance, as that of Emily Watson, who indeed has mental problems. Not that she isn't surrounded some other great performers, their reputation proved, when seeing them in other films. Oilman, Stellarsgard, nothing like the physics professor from Good Will Hunting, here with long stringy hair, a bit of a flabby body, suffers a fatal mishap that leaves him paralyzed. Unable to perform sexually, he beseeches his love to go out and have random sex and that come back and tell him the juicy details, in depth, that basically gets him off. One scene on a bus, where she made a move on an old Codger, was a riot. I guess that's proving your love. Watson's performance is magnetic, all so authentic, and the hand held shots work well. Stellarsgard is really the only one who gives her leverage or understands her. I really liked his free spirited and determined character, such a reality and natural self about it, where some other times you think he's obnoxious, but it's real. Nell is (Watson) from a strict church background, her mother, harsh, sister (Cartlidge) overprotective. None a moment is more disturbing after she makes one too many trips out of port, for some sex and coin, the client, a frighteningly chilling Udo Kier, anchored on one of those big ships. This is easily Lars's best film, better than those antichrists, or nymphomaniacs, which judging by those ones, you can't believe he made one as good as this, and probably won't make anything that will better it. It's pacing is slow and steady, but necessary for the story flow, proving by the end of it, so and steady can win the race. It doesn't wrap up the way you think, like a twist you could say, on one side of the scale tragic but on the other, inspiring. Great films like these, come along so often, as it more Indie/Art-house type, but these films really set the trend for the 1990's. A bloody absorbing film about real love which more people should be informed about. Don't overlook this pearl.

Winner of the Grand Prix award at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, & the first in Lars Von Trier's "Golden Heart Trilogy". "Breaking The Waves" is a cruel, yet somewhat touching film based on a twisted sense of innocence and love. No matter what happens after the credits, the outcome will leave you heartbroken and empty."The Golden Heart" trilogy in a nutshell involves the female protagonist to remain completely naive throughout the story, and virtually give all of herself up to and for the people she loves.Bess (Emily Watson), is a lady with a history of mental problems and is set to marry her beloved Jan (Stellan Skarsgard), despite the negative reactions of her church and family. What begins as a fiery month of passion, tragedy strikes. Though Bess remains faithful, Jan has ideas for Bess that he believes will keep Bess satisfied, and remove any further motivations for suicide.Gut-wrenching to say the least, "Breaking The Waves" is clearly the breakout movie for Von Trier and everyone else involved. Especially that of Emily Watson, whose powerhouse performance will challenge you on just how far you are willing to go with her on this twisted tale. Saying that, story has never been the strongest point of Von Trier's movies, and I easily found myself connecting the cruel twists of fate in this picture to his later work "Dancer In The Dark" (2000). Situations become too bizarre and ludicrous, just for the sake of beating down this poor woman (I guess that was the overall idea). Still with these kind of setups, the actors have incredible potential and a broad range of emotions available. Shot with Trier's Dogme95 Manifesto, the grainy hillsides of Scotland help lift the fog off the ground, and build a landscape that manages to echo that of its subject matter efficiently and eloquently.Final Verdict: Told in chapters to some superb music cues and locations, This depressive story shall grind you down like no other throughout, yet somehow by the end it manages to instill a sense of hope and optimism rarely seen in cinema. Or at least more than most blatant Hollywood romances go. 7/10.