Breaking the Waves (1996)

Breaking the Waves is an incredible film. I wasn't ready for the huge impact it had on me. I'd expected it to be good, but I didn't expect it to be devastatingly beautiful. I've seen Element of Crime a few times and really liked it, and I loved Dogville. But, Breaking the Waves...wow. Someone needs to give this a proper Region 1 release, stat.

Usually, when I take notes on a film, I'll have 2-4 lines full of shorthand notation, and I can usually fit 5 or 6 films' worth of notes on a page. Breaking the Waves took up about 3/4 of an entire page, and I could have kept going if I wasn't too engrossed in the film.

Breaking the waves is a great film because it inspires a lot from its viewers. It inspires you to think about yourself, your own life and situation, and wonder what you would do in that situation. It inspires you to discuss with others who have seen the film, and even those who haven't, on the themes of love, faith and sacrifice, as mostly everybody will have a different opinion on the events and the spirituality of the film. It inspires a lot of soul-searching in the viewer, as he's forced to look into his own spirit and wonder if he does or could ever possess the same amount of faith that Bess has in the film.

The film is shot handheld then transferred back and forth from 35mm film, which results in a shaky, grainy image. It makes the film feel far more 'real' and raw than it otherwise would have, due to the shakiness of the always-handheld camerawork. Because of this 'realness' of the film, we're inclined to believe everything in the film, take it all as completely logical and true. Yet, when Bess prays for Jan to come home and when she begins to cure him with her actions, we begin to wonder if God actually exists, if there's a mystical, spiritual element at work. This, I think, brings things to a screeching halt in the psyche of the viewer. He wonders "Wow, if this world is real, and God is at work...then is God at work all around us?" At least, that's what I got from it. It's kind of a polarizing piece of work, in that way.

It's interesting that we know almost nothing about the characters before the start of the film, other than Bess and Jan are supposedly in love and got married. We don't know if Jan swept Bess off of her feet with grand, romantic gestures, or if he simply settled for her. We don't know if Bess was truly searching for Jan all these years, or if he's simply the first man to express a romantic interest in her. Throughout the film, we never learn much about Jan or his motivations. Is he just entirely driven by sex, or is there a lot more to his nature, a kind, gentle side that the viewer isn't shown? At the end of the film, Jan is walking again, and Bess isn't even in the ground, which leads me to believe he made such a great recovery in a couple weeks' time, nothing short of miraculous. We believe this is due to Bess' sacrifice of her own life for his. We begin to wonder- this is who this wonderful woman gave up her life for? Is he even worth it? But, that doesn't matter. It could be anybody that she gave herself for, the focus of the story is Bess herself, and more importantly, the faith she exhibited.

Towards the end of the film, it's an utterly devastating experience. When the young children chase Bess through the town, throwing rocks at her, calling her a tart, it's heartbreaking. The handheld camera really adds to the effect, because its shakiness mirrors the panic and emotional breakdown that Bess is experiencing. This is an incredible moment, once you step back and look at it. This woman has been having all kinds of sex with random men, performing deplorable acts, all while she has a husband. If you can look past this moral issue, she's still a deeply disturbed person, dealing with a great amount of psychosis. We should condemn her, or at least take a great amount of pity on her and distance ourselves from her. Yet, we've been with her every step of her journey, we understand her emotions, her plight, and we begin to believe in miracles, alongside her. Because we identify with her, her actions are completely logical, and we feel overwhelming emotion for her.

It's interesting to note how the spirituality of the viewer can color the events of the film for them. In the beginning of the film, when Bess begins to have a lot of sex with Jan and distance herself more and more from the church, it's implied that everyone in the congregation looks down upon her as falling from grace, if it will. If the viewer is a spiritual person with the same views as those in the church, we agree with them and shake our heads at Bess. Yet, if the viewer looks upon the church as being more of a hindrance, either due to a disagreement with the methods of showing faith employed, or due to their own agnosticism or atheism, they look upon the events as being an eye-opening experience for Bess, and they silently cheer for her.

Emily Watson's performance is one of the greatest I've ever seen put to screen. She IS Bess for the running time of the film. She takes something that could have easily ended up trite and eye-rollingly embarrassing, and makes it incredibly moving. It's because of her performance that we believe in the events, and because of her that we feel our hearts go through the wringer and subsequently feel astonishment as she finally experiences a spiritual epiphany, as the church bells finally ring, a true miracle.

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Also, something that I keep thinking about, and Breaking the Waves made me want to put forth- How much about the film is the viewer expected to know? Does the director make the film hoping that the viewer will know nothing about the film, that every single aspect of the plot, characters and the look of the film will be completely new and previously unseen? Or, does he make it expecting that the viewer has seen a trailer, and is familiar with the basic plot, look and feel of the film, and knows precisely what to expect? Because, some films, like Breaking the Waves, give away a large amount of plot on the back of the DVD cases, of all places. Breaking the Waves, in fact, gives away around 4/5 of the plot, in terms of running time, and throws in some big hints as to the ending, which kind of spoiled the film for me.

Any other film nerds want to chime in?