Diary entries forBreaking the Waves
Breaking the Waves
Auteurs: Lars von Trier Film #4: Breaking the Waves To say that I am shocked would be an understatement. I am completely floored by Breaking the Waves, a film filled with so much love, longing, hope, fear, dread, and most importantly, ambition. This is von Trier’s most hopeful film yet, and while the film itself is very saddening, Bess still fills viewers with hope. She is love, she is desire, she is who we should strive to be in many ways, just trying to make everyone happy. While this is the bulkiest of von Trier’s films yet (hitting a little under 160 minutes), every scene here is poetic, paired with beautiful beige visuals, and while the film is cliched, it still was a surprise. Despite the length, this film went by very quickly, completely transporting me into this world. It’s an introduction to the hand-held camerawork that is featured in his later works, making this film feel a little more familiar than his early works. Breaking the Wavesis a breathtaking achievement, and one that I am glad to see gain some recognition from the Academy. Having bought this film last year on the Criteiron Collection, I am extremely grateful to have bought it, since this film was a complete joy to view.
Breaking the Waves
07-11-23 • Lars Von Trier A powerful, sympathetic portrait of a woman’s struggle with faith and the hypocrisy of religious institutions, Breaking the Waves marks only my second foray into Lars von Trier’s long and interesting filmography after a very prolonged hiatus after watching his infamous film, Antichrist, because it really messed me up. This was an incredibly frustrating and uncomfortable watch due to Emily Watson’s wonderful performance as Bess, a mousy, religious woman who wants nothing more than to live a long and loving life with her new husband, Jan (Stellan Skarsgård). This being a Lars von Trier movie, that is not really even a consideration. Surprisingly, the ending is quite hopeful, despite the rest of the taxing experience. I find myself quite excited to watch more, if I’m being honest.
Breaking the Waves
“𝘐𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘴, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘦.” Did you ever want to talk to God, but realize you were just talking to yourself? That the sound of your own voice paves the path towards reason? And it’s sometimes in our own convoluted ways of reasoning to reach some kind of understanding? Trier offers a stark look at desperate living and desperate loving until it is as barren as the landscape chapter cards that split the different pursuits of trying, hurting, and sexual depravity, further explored through character destruction. How does a lover fulfill needs and desires as the loved lay to waste towards death? Ultimately, when in love, two destructions occur, a collectivity in understanding as the idea itself strives to stay alive. Trier breaks his own rules of Dogme 95 to further break down the self, leaving realism at witness to barren misunderstanding. It’s a wasteland. It’s the face of community. Seeped deep into personal beliefs that shun our anti-hero into her own self-sacrifice, and all to a beautiful end. Trier surprises. Shocks. But all to a fruitful purpose, a beautiful end that examines how religion can never leave politics, inevitably inherent, even to the individual trying so hard to connect to community, but in the end, rids herself, into the spatial air she ends up speaking to. Watson carries a performance that rises, falls, dips, a mastery in the range of frightful feelings that Trier conjures, all into spatial air, inherent in nature, which would later be explored in the curiosity and wonder that is Antichrist (https://letterboxd.com/film/antichrist/). “𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥.”
