Really Surprised!

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Bess McNeill is a young woman living in a conservative coastal village in Scotland. Against the wishes of her church she marries Jan, a Scandinavian worker on an oil rig. She is insanely in love with Jan and can't bear it when he leaves to do his shift on the oil rig. Then Jan is injured at work and everything changes.A Lars von Trier movie that covers some interesting themes – obsessive relationships, euthanasia, manipulation, dogma and the lengths people go to for love. Some of these are only touched on though, with no real development or conclusion. Moreover, the story is told in a very drawn-out fashion. The movie could easily have been less than two hours long but von Trier stretches it out to over 2 ½ hours through extending scenes well beyond their usefulness and including scenes that add nothing to the movie.Not entirely engaging either, so the 2 ½ hours moves quite slowly. Bess is not a very likable character – irascible, controlling, intense and a tad insane. Ending is quite emotional though and provides good closure to the story. Another plus is the great soundtrack.Overall, reasonably interesting but is a test of patience.

If I had a dollar for every time 'devastating' was used to describe a Lars Von Trier film, I would have...well, a lot of money. He continually relishes on images that shock the mind and soul. He is admired for his ability to not hold back. His ties to Dogme 95 are evident, but paradoxically, here he makes it a deliberate stylistic endeavour; his favoured nervy, hand-held style, the washed out palette, the graininess of the image. How ironic that in the pursuit of authenticity and simplicity he had taken an extra, unnatural step - the filtered look of the film was achieved by transferring the stock to video and back again. The desired impression is the guise of naturalism and realism, as if we were observing the events ourselves. But this collapses on itself when we are the only ones in the scene with Emily Watson. Suddenly the fragility takes on a different meaning. We become perverse intruders on a mental breakdown, but there is no one here save for the audience, so it is performance we are witnessing. To her credit, Watson keeps us guessing whilst the script is more direct. It presents to us a child, without any tangible prospects or abilities, who throws tantrums when control is wrested away from her because of the real world's demands. She counts the days on the calendar until her beloved Jan returns, but this isn't enough - Von Trier feels the need to throw in a crude, stick figure drawing as though she is a kindergartner with a crush. The first time she responds to her own prayer in a deeper intonation (God is Irish, apparently), it is mildly humorous, but by the end it is tragic. Watson is good enough to seed doubt in our minds. When her faith begins to waver, these prayers lose their mystical quality and just once, she responds as God in her normal voice. She shows glimpses of Bess' logic and reason when she wrests with her own conscience and selfishness. In the very early beginnings, she acknowledges the camera and invites us into her mind, cheekily grinning and almost winking at what is to come. There are brief moments of heart and stability; see how Watson makes phone sex endearing and cute, how she pauses and hesitates to be explicit, because her religion has coded her against it. So to dive into the deep end, and go against these teachings must demonstrate incredible strength and willpower, must it not? A oft criticism of the film is that it treats Bess not only in childish terms, but as a surrogate for battering, being shoved along without agency and subject to continually harsher abuse. She is confined by the patriarchal constructs of the religion, raised a virgin and cursed to hell for her sins (but those sins which are an act of bravery and pure love). A gender reversal would not only be illogical and radical, but conjure none of the shock. Von Trier is vague about the origins of her development and capabilities, and hastily sidesteps this dilemma. He answers the true question with his final sequences, which are steeped in Christian allegory: the public denouncing by the church (the Pharisees), the Christlike sacrifice by taking the burden of sin, the desecration of the grave for and the spiritual rebirth (at sea), with the bells signalling the miracles that we have witnessed. It's religious propaganda, and not subtle at that; Bess must be put through figurative hell (the result of her own sin) before she finally gains her martyrdom. And it is typical Von Trier, a cruel joke played by a cruel god. She dies with the knowledge that she has failed her husband, and is going to literal hell. Only then can Jan begin to walk again.

Starring Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard and Katrin Cartlidge.Written by Lars Von Trier, Peter Asmussen and David Pirie.Directed by Lars Von Trier.A totally absorbing movie.I liked everything about it from the unbelievably good acting performance by Emily Watson to the location filming, cinematography and well crafted plot. There's something old school about this one, an old fashioned movie without all the bells and whistles that spoil some films. The haunting remote location filming adds to the emotional, dark and at times, humorous story.It's a long one and maybe a bit too long and there are a couple of plot holes that don't really ruin this great movie. For example the hospital in the story seems to have only one Doctor who is responsible for life saving surgery and also mental health reviews and probably everything else and the sister of the main female lead seems at times to be the only nurse in the hospital. But overall this is a big fat ten out of ten for me. A wonderfully emotional roller coaster of a movie that covers everything from love to heartbreak to religious bigotry.On a sad note I was trying to work out where I'd seen the young woman who plays the sister in the movie and now I can only guess I remember her from Brookside, which I watched on and off during the eighties. I was shocked and saddened to learn that this talented and beautiful actress died a few years after filming this. Such a shame. I'm sure she would have gone on to achieve a lot more in acting and directing.10/10

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.