Breaking the Waves | | Cast : | Emily Watson | | Director : | Lars von Trier | | Studio : | Artisan Entertainment | | Format : | Color | | Released Date : | November 13, 1996 | | DVD Released Date : | July 25, 2000 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 01, 2005 | | Summary | Worst movie I've ever seen. | Content
 | If you like 'Breaking the Waves' you'll probably like 'Naked,' the two worst movies I've ever seen in my life. As far as I'm concerned the movie is based on a crude cliche - 'a f*$king miracle.' About a husband and wife, when the husband becomes ill his wife, a half-wit, follows up on a suggestion by her husband to find a lover and allows herself to be raped and murdered by two men thinking by doing this she will miraculously save her husbands life and miracle of miracles as she dies the husband is brought back to health. If you watch the movie you'll know what I mean about the cliche. It isn't worth the time, money, or effort from any perspective. It's just plain vile, assinine and boring. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 31, 2005 | | Summary | Why isn't this film in stock?!? | Content
| Why can't I buy this movie? No, I did not see it -- no local video stores have it and now this. Is it perhaps because the film has some sex in it? What has happened in our society to embrace violence and shy away from sexuality? It really hurts I can't see this movie, which I heard it's one of the best films ever. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 24, 2005 | | Summary | The Great Lars von Trier | Content
| "Breaking the Waves", released in 1996, is directed by Lars von Trier and stars Emily Watson. This story, set in the 1970's, follows the story of a newlywed couple who love each other unconditionally. However, that love is put to the test after Jan suffers a severe head injury at his work. His wife Bess now must do everything possible to get him out of his coma. Even if that means acting against her strong religious Christian faith. Jan requests that she sleeps with other men to help save him and so she can still feel pleasure like it's he giving it to her. Miraculously, revolutions with his health start occurring. However, Bess's reputation is in jeopardy.
Danish director Lars von Trier, also known for 2000's "Dancer In the Dark" starring Bjork, is well known for creating films that entail someone who acts terribly or against their morals to save their loved ones. Those acts become heroic. Beyond the low-budget camera work are some of the most heartwrenching stories known to cinema. This effect allows the story to express itself more emotionally without any distractions. "Breaking the Waves" is no acception. He proves that films do not need fancy effects to be eyeopening. His unique work unfortunately remains overlooked.
"Breaking the Waves" amazingly maintains its emotional value throughout the film. This acceptional plot distinguishes the love story and the heroism beautifully. It deeply explores the characters' backgrounds and emotions, which shares why this story reaches such emotional levels. Despite the sexual acts not being acceptable in society, Trier amazingly maintains the heroism theme without labeling Bess as unfaithful. The storyline creativity is beyond imaginable. This is one of those few films that successfully maintains audience interest with mostly dialect and little action.
Emily Watson received her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role as Bess. Her remarkable talents express the film's emotional value to unimaginable levels. She was truly one of the best actresses of 1996. Her research of the character was revalent. Her challenging performance never loses it touch, considering almost every scene is difficult acting. Though all the other actors performed will, Watson's performance states itself the highest.
Those looking for an emotional film should watch "Breaking the Waves". This is sure to please many audiences. Lars von Trier's other films are recommended to those who love this film. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 19, 2005 | | Summary | there are idiots | Content
| and then there are scumbag idiots like lars von trier. if you dislike america so much you should have stayed in denmark you buffoon.
avoid |
| Rating | | | Date | January 12, 2005 | | Summary | Transcendence of Space in "Breaking the Waves" | Content
| Lars Von Trier's "Breaking the Waves" may very well be the most important film of the 1990s. Moreover, it is one of the most beautiful and powerful films in all of film history. The film's power derives from the uniqueness of its style. Though many of its techniques and devices are not unprecedented, and have, indeed, become quite common in the many years since the groundbreaking films of Jean-Luc Godard and John Cassavetes used them, "Breaking the Waves" is nonetheless a radical work of representation. The editing and photography of the film is both primitive and yet completely groundbreaking. It owes a debt to the work of another Danish director, Carl Theodore Dreyer, in such films as "The Passion of Joan of Arc," and, especially, "Ordet." Yet it also expands on the possibilities of cinematic syntax in a wholly original way, thus creating a completely transcendent work of art.
By avoiding the dull, static naturalism that characterizes traditional filmmaking, Von Trier restores the utter complexity of life as it is actually lived through the use of shaky, hand-held camera work, jump cuts, and an open, seemingly haphazard approach to composition. It is shot almost entirely in close-up without a single orthodox establishing shot, and cinematographer Robby Muller's camerawork achieves a new intimacy with the actors. The pure expressiveness of their faces and gestures is remarkable. Nevertheless, life in all its abundance simply cannot be completely reproduced on screen. Instead, Von Trier hints at it with loose compositions that suggest an infinite world beyond the simple confines of a rectangular frame. Likewise, the elliptical cutting results in a rapid accumulation of disparate details, which cannot be easily processed. All of this creates a sort of mystery, forcing the audience to acknowledge a world existing beyond the confines of the material represented.
The events of "Breaking the Waves" are condensed mostly into single and two character scenes. The film concerns human instincts of love, faith, and sexual yearning and their repression by society, which is represented in the film by a strict religious sect. The film revolves around Bess, an updated version of the archetype of the Holy Fool. In response to the patriarchal Protestant system, which will not even allow women to speak in church or attend funeral services, she has sought a direct communication with God. Her introverted way of life is complicated by her love for Jan (her new, rugged, oil-rigger husband) and her awakening sensuality. This dichotomy leads to many hardships for Bess and, ultimately, her death. The film depicts a story that is both very specific and exquisitely universal as Bess's torments and faith unfold.
But a mere description of the film's theme and characters is not the focus of this essay. "Breaking the Waves" is about life. It is the film's style, in its adherence to the unfathomable scope of life, which is its content. This style is wholly at odds with that of classical a Hollywood film. The so-called invisible style of those films reduces life to an easily assimilated series of bits in which everything flows through a simple logic of conflict, action, and resolution. The careful compositions exclude that which is not seen as obviously necessary to the storyline. Thus, all life is given a structure of simple meaning at the service of plot. These films are merely escapist fantasy; mass-produced entertainments promoting and servicing the cult of the star.
"Breaking the Waves" carefully avoids these formulaic and formalistic approaches to its material. At first glance, the movie, with its documentary-like style, seems connected to the films of the French New Wave and, especially, the work of its most influential member, Jean-Luc Godard. But while "Breaking the Waves" raises the specter of Godard's greatest works (particularly "Breathless") in its techniques, the effect is quite different.
With Godard, the purpose was to deconstruct the narrative. It was an attempt to empower the audience by giving them a glimpse at the processes used to create specific reactions (as explained by J. Dudley Andrew in "The Major Film Theories"). The editing and camerawork were meant to call attention to themselves, as opposed to "Breaking the Waves," where they transcend their individual powers by no longer being mere tools in an attempt to prove a theory. Instead, they are simply used to present life in its truest state. It becomes impossible for the audience to situate itself or to view the characters from a detached perspective. While the spiraling camera movement and the disorienting editing may reflect the interior world of Bess, it also demonstrates an unwillingness on Von Trier's part to provide the viewer with a simple, constructed presentation of reality which has been taken and used as a convention ever since the days of the proscenium arch.
The situations facing the characters of "Breaking the Waves" are bleak and claustrophobic, but Von Trier's style expressly refuses to reinforce a sense of impotence and doom. The style is consistently one of new perspectives: The 180-degree rule is often violated. Stasis is explicitly rejected. The continuously panning camera movement, exaggerated by the very closeness of the frame, does not permit prediction or simple logic. And this alone seems to open up new possibilities of freedom in the film's isolated and morally constrained setting. This movement also echoes that of the ocean bordering Bess's hamlet, which is an important detail that expands on the larger theme. It seems to suggest that the hope that exists in the world of the film comes from the natural world. Consequently, this linking of the filmic technique and the natural world seems to give the latter a holy significance, and it is this that allows one to see that, in the moral scope of the film, "Religion is accused, but not God," as Von Trier notes to Stig Bjorkman in Sight and Sound.
-- Review by Lucas Brachish & Darius Ebert (this review is being listed on Amazon under agreement with the original publisher, the blogspot CelebrityCola, and in conjunction with a Creative Commons License, which allows for material to be published on any website so long as the original authors and site are credited) |
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