JohnDoe
Bryn
BrentonBreaking The Waves (1996)
September 18th 2007 01:47
Straight after the screening I staggered out into the foyer and ordered a straight whiskey from the bar, then wondered around in a daze. Someone asked if I was alright and I replied that I had just seen Breaking The Waves and was an emotional wreck. From memory I didn’t last long at the after party I was too fragile.
I shall be brief; it is the mid-70s and Bess McNeil (Emily Watson) is a naïve young woman living in a very strict Calvinist community in northern Scotland. She has met a Danish man, Jan (Stellan Skarsgård), who works on an oil rig, and the two of them are married at the beginning of the movie.
Bess’s older sister-in-law Dodo (Katrin Cartlidge) looks out for Bess (Dodo has been hardened by the death of her own husband, Bess’s brother), as she knows Bess to be a very impressionable and emotionally vulnerable woman. Some would say Bess is stupid, but her psyche is more complex than that. Bess’s parents are deeply religious and are concerned about her union with an outsider.
Von Trier applies a Brechtian approach to the filming with the character of Bess frequently breaking the fourth wall (the camera) by gazing into the lens at various moments during the course of the movie. This can be interpreted as Bess’s contact with God, along with her almost “saintly” aura reflecting an inner voice which guides and cajoles her.
Playwright Bertolt Brecht also used tableaux in his plays and Von Trier employs a similar convention with the chapter cards which punctuate the movie. There are eight of these over the course of the two-and-a-half hour film, each one a stunning landscape composition which looks like a painting, until you notice the subtle movements of water, cloud and light. These chapter stops are accompanied by an excerpt of music from the period, each one loaded with passion and melancholy for maximum emotional impact (I remember tears rolling down my cheeks whilst Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and David Bowie’s Life On Mars were used).
Stellan Skarsgard as Jan and Emily Watson as Bess
Apart from Emily Watson, the other star of the movie is my favourite director of photography Robby Muller. His cinematography on this movie is outstanding. Curiously though the movie was shot on video, but unlike conventional editing where a movie is transferred onto video for editing, then the negative cutter matches the cut to the video edit, for Breaking The Waves they simply recorded the video edit back onto 35mm, which gave the film its striking grainy look. The chapter cards however were obviously treated in a more deliberate, painterly fashion.
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Comment by Damo
Excellent review.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Chic Critique
So please don't take what I'm about to say personally.
I saw this film when it came out in 1996 at the cinema. I am not averse to emotionally charged films, or being pushed outside my comfort zone, or being cinematically confronted in a movie.
But I hated this movie with a passion. It irritated the crap out of me and it was way too long.
My boyfriend at the time and I moaned about it for years afterwards. We used to nickname it Breaking The Wind.
I hope that hasn't upset you.
Cheers
CC
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Powerful, moving and affecting a must see for those wanting a cinema experience that will stay with you for life.
Loving your work.
Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
A painter myself, I will look out for it on the strength of this alone.
...not to mention the other pluses of good acting and story plot, landscapes and artistry...sounds like a treasure, worthy of time... in these days of mine, when time is too short for the average transient 'Wallywood' flick.
Thanks for the heads up.
Lilla ...
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
I do understand about hating a film with a passion. My pet hate is Luc Besson's The Fifth Element. But don't get me started.
Thanks for your honesty ... who knows, perhaps you'll choose to watch it again one day and you'll find, you've changed, the movie hasn't, and you'll realise just how brilliant it really is ...
JD, cheers mate.
Lilla, this is the kind of movie Hollywood could never make.
Comment by Chic Critique
And The Fifth Element is one of my favourite all time films - but I can understand how it would irritate some people.
You're a good bloke Bryn you are
Cheers!
Comment by KylieW
Celebrity Obsession
I have never seen this movie. Heard a lot about it. But never been game to run the emotional gauntlet.
One day when I'm in the mood I will sit down and watch this film. I can't remember the last time I cried in a movie!
Kylie
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Kylie, make sure when you do watch the movie you watch it uninterupted, and with either by yourself or someone whom is like-minded. And have a box of tissues near by ...
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Looks good - I'll try to keep an eye out...
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile