Oh, Von Trier. I think I'd be a bit scared to be your wife(because that's totally possible) since you'd probably torture me for 3 months on end just to show me the beauty of life. Ah, I'm not trying to turn into the Cannes Ecumenical Jury here with my remarks but the man could totally make a case for intense and brutal misogyny if he wasn't so goddamn genius in his approach to his characters, stories, and ideas. I agree with what one reviewer said about Breaking the Waves: "It is the easiest thing in the world to do ... move people by destroying something beautiful." So, I don't agree that it's easy, per se, but he wasn't wrong about how powerful it is to see something SO beautiful being destroyed. Lars von Trier knows this, too, and rings as much drama as he can out of it. I can't even express my emphasis with that last sentence. Dogville and Breaking The Waves are pretty much the definition of human suffering. Okay, I'm being over-dramatic only because I'm simplifying those two great films into narrow categories of some weird and endless exploitation which they clearly aren't. Oh, yeah. THE MOVIE. Let's get to that.
You can't start talking about Breaking The Waves without first mentioning the raw and fearless performance of Emily Watson. She makes this film. Her sweet naiviety and uncompromising devotion to faith and love makes YOU immediately fall in love with her. To see her spiral down like she does is all-at-once heartbreaking and sometimes reassuring in a strange way. Heartbreaking needs no explanation is you've seen the film but the reassuring probably does. I don't revel in watching Watson in intense pain. I'm no Von trier(oh no he didn't!). I kid. I find her complete obedience to her faith to be a wonderful sub-textual commentary on religion, itself. I consider this film more visceral and concerned with human emotion when it comes to it's style but it's Von trier so you know there's something always sneaking in the background. The idea of Bess finding God, literally, within herself is so poetic and a great contrast to the rigid, unforgiving, and machismo-ruled religious world that she grew up with. So, this film makes parallel points about unyielding devotion whether it be to love or faith. It's rare to see a character like that and even rarer to see her not treated like a complete idiot. You can question her actions for days and days but her motives were as pure as anything you can think of. She knew that and a certain someone knew that, too. Those bells don't get rung for just anybody.
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