My favorite film by my favorite director.
Wait, ok. A little virtue-signalling never hurt anyone, so I’ll point out: From everything I’ve read and seen, director Lars von Trier seems to me like kind of a disturbed or unbalanced individual, very likely a misogynist, misanthrope, almost definitely a narcissist, and probably personally an all-around malignant asshole. And also, I think, easily the most talented filmmaker of the last few decades. Not since Herzog or Tarkovsky have I seen someone who just struck me as so adept in the language of filmmaking, such a natural talent.
Breaking The Waves is a straight drama. Set on a remote Scottish island, where an American there working on an oil right has fallen in love with a local, who is a member of the island’s ultra-religious church. They marry, when he is injured in an explosion on the rig, and their relationship takes some vintage LvT perverse turns on his way back to health.
The movie is as perverse and disturbing in some ways, and in the same ways, as many of LvT’s movies have been accurately criticized for. Several leading actresses, including Helena Bonham Carter who was apparently fine playing the lead in “Fight Club”, turned down the female lead because they were uncomfortable with the character’s sexual behavior. The actress who eventually got the role, Emily Watson, who went on to become a highly respected actress, was expelled from her college when the film came out for participating in what they considered depravity.
I’ve tried a few times to tell friends about the details this movie, but it’s hard to do justice to it, and relating the plot alone, without seeing it unfold yourself under LvT’s control, doesn’t capture it.
It is a sick, beautiful, touching, beautiful, disturbing, beautiful movie. It has a million tiny moments of directorial brilliance. It has an ending that still gives me chills down my spine when I think of it.
It’s worth pointing out that LvT’s magnum opus, according to some people (including me), is “Antichrist”, a truly horrible movie that completely divorces the idea of great filmmaking from any sort of entertainment value. I can honestly say it’s a great film, certainly far and away the best movie I would never, ever suggest anybody watch. And it makes a certain amount of sense he eventually got to that from this.
He also made “The House That Jack Built“, which seemed like a deliberate attempt to quickly drive his critics out of the movie theater in disgust, before then rewarding everyone sick, foolish, or optimistic enough to stay. Again: LvT seems like kind of an asshole.
But despite some very strong and occasionally unpleasant moments, there’s more than enough beauty here to make “Breaking The Waves” an exceptionally great movie.
For what it’s worth, since it may sound like it’s difficult to praise unambiguously, it did win the Grand Prize at Cannes, “Best Actress” nominations for Emily Watson from BAFTA and the Oscars, and took Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Cinematographer from the National Society of Film Critics that year, as well as Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Cinematographer from the NY Film Critics Circle. It’s a really well-made movie.