Thanks for the memories!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

As Good As It Gets

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Lars Von Trier is a director who breaks all the conventional rules of the film making, to make strange yet amazing films. His films are always emotionally captivating.Breaking the Waves tells the story of Jan and Bess. Bess is grown up in a highly religious place. She preserved her body with all the purity for her husband. Jan is working in an oil- rig. After the marriage, Jan has to return to the work. In deep love, Bess prays to God to bring him home. The prayer came true. He came home, but due to an accident. As always in Lar's films, the film explores the maximum talent of the actress and resulted in the nomination of Emily Watson for the Best Actress at the Oscars. She also got nominated in many other Awards, including Golden Globe.A definitely must watch film. You are going to love it, if you are a real crazy film lover.

Love above all. That seems to be the theme, the leit-motiv of this movie. However although this theme could deliver the necessary ingredients to make a good movie, it becomes too strange to be good. A young naive girl falls in love with a man a bit older than her but who corresponds deeply to her love. Their mutual love is physically and spiritually overwhelming. All this takes place in a remote place of northern Scotland where a puritanical and fundamentalist religious community dominates and morally rules. The husband works at sea in an oil rig and suffers a serious accident there which breaks his neck making him totally disabled. This fact unchains a series of actions and reactions also in psychological and affective terms, some of them very odd, uncommon and perverted, namely in the sexual field that reveal that they both have neurotic personalities which makes those events a bit difficult to be accepted in terms of reality or to have an aesthetic value in terms of cinema or literature. This movie is of some value only for its good direction and excellent performance of all actors and actresses.

As happens so often Emily Watsons debut movie sees a totally unself conscious ability to craft the part better than any experienced actor could. Luckily she is supported by a cast who all excel too, Katrin Cartlidge is amazing. The story is authentic and grittily observed and the direction clearly gets the very best from all of the actors in order to tell the story in the best way. My only criticism is the awful, ridiculous, drunken photography that you simply can't call art, or cutting edge, or new technique, or anything else other than...awful. It actually spoiled the film for me and it would easily have gotten a 9.5 from me if they'd filmed it properly. Watch it though...you won't be sorry if you love good acting and good story telling. A fabulous movie from the totally overrated Lars von Trier, would never have guessed that.

At first glance, "Breaking the Waves" may appear to be slow paced and full of unnecessary exposition. However, as the film unfolds, each scene comes together like pictures in a photo book. Protagonist Bess McNeil is an innocent and naive woman, who falls madly in love with a man named Jan Nyman. After the two are married, Jan is sent off to work at an oil rig, leaving Bess all alone. Bess pines for her husband and prays for his safe return to the point where her family and friends call her selfish for not readily accepting circumstances. Tragedy strikes when Jan is badly injured in an accident and is feared to never recover. In order to keep his beloved wife happy (and in a drug induced delusional state), Jan encourages Bess to sleep with other men in order to feel the love and affection that he can not show her. Torn between her devotion to her husband and the strict religious convictions she had been raised with, Bess struggles to fulfill Jan's wishes and maintain her role as a devoted child of God. Ultimately Bess chooses to serve her husband, believing that God would want her to make him happy. Bess feels no love from her encounters with other men, longing only for the touch of her husband. The task kills her inside, but she lies to Jan, saying that she enjoyed the experiences. She soon finds herself shunned from her community as her attempts to serve her husband, her community and God fall apart and ultimately lead to her exile and death at the hands of a violent gang who sexual assault and murder her. As she prays for guidance, it becomes clear that there are no answers and the choice between being a good wife and a good Christian can not be compromised. We're given a small solace at the end of the film, when Jan (recovered from his injury) learns of his wife's death and the loyalty she showed him pays tribute to Bess after the church refuses to show such respect. "Breaking the Waves" is a tragedy of conscience, in which no matter what choice is made, heart break is the inevitable outcome. It show cases the conflict between following the strict and unwavering doctrines of religion and doing what is right in unusual and unforeseeable circumstances.