Movie of the Month : BREAKING THE WAVES

“L O V E “. Everyday we experience this breathtaking emotion with both inanimate objects and with other souls. It is when we finally find true love that nothing else in the world seems worthy or good. We work as hard as we can to continue this warmth that we feel in our hearts when true love exists, and sometimes that means going to a level we never thought imaginable. This is the central theme of the film, Breaking the Waves.

Synopsis:

In a Puritan Scottish village where religion is the number one priority and women are confined to being just housewives a religious woman named Bess McNeill who has conversations with God, finds the love of her life in a worker at the oil rig called Jan. The two soon marry and fall madly in love with each other but tragedy strikes as Jan gets badly injured in an accident at work that leaves him paralyzed from the neck down. But Bess really loves her man and is determined to stay with him forever but an unusual request from Jan complicates things as he ask her to do something that requires her to give the ultimate sacrifice. Bess is determined to make Jan happy and to prove to God that she loves him, but she soon loses control of her actions

Review;

Winner of the GRAND PRIX AWARD @ FESTIVAL DE CANNES, at first glance the movie seems like a heartbreaking romantic story of a woman that loves her husband even though he's crippled from the neck down but then slowly turns from that to a dark tragic story of a woman going to the extremes to make him happy.. However director Lars Von Trier turns a horrid tale into something intimate, real, tender and heartbreaking thanks to a bare-bones approach consisting of hand-held camera, lack of artificial lighting, grainy photography, and lingering close-ups ,story inter cut with brief music interludes set to an image of scenery. This breaks the film up in a style not used before.

The movie has a mesmerizing quality that reminds me of Carl Theodor Dreyer's "Ordet" at times. Both are set in remote communities and deal with religious concepts which, even for a semi-believer, remain difficult to comprehend. Both films have a supposedly mentally unstable central character, a young man who talks as Christ in "Ordet" while Bess, the young woman in "Breaking the Waves" talks to God who answers her in her own voice's deepest register. Bess falls in lave with Jan, an oil-rig worker and the early scenes chart their wedding. When Jan has to return to the oil-rig the distraught Bess prays to God for his return, a prayer that is answered ironically when he returns paralyzed from the neck down after an accident on the rig. How Bess lives with this situation is the subject of the second and third hours of the film. These have at times an almost unbearable intensity. It is one of those very rare films where I feel the use of a hand-held camera to be completely justified as it gives extraordinarily emotional events a frenetic immediacy.

Also the ending here is a real head scratcher, I won't go into detail as I don't want to ruin the film for any one else, but I've seen the film two times now and I'm still not sure what to make of it, lets just say you'll never forget that last shot and you'll be thinking about it for weeks. Either way, Breaking the Waves is still one-hundred times better than most of the Hollywood hogwash, full of beautiful images and performances, and is a good chance to see a real film by one of cinema's greatest directorial talents.

Lars von Trier is a most provocative film-maker: provocatively innovative and brilliant, but also provocatively offensive and silly. Frustratingly, it's hard to separate these two gifts: it seems to be in his nature to continually push the envelope, and dare his audience to judge whether he is doing so with a straight face. Although still far-out by the standards of mainstream cinema, 'Breaking the Waves' is perhaps his most conventional English-language film; and also his best, a movie of rare emotional power.

The most heartbreaking performance ever to grace cinema is that of Emily Watson as Bess McNeill. What a pity that Frances McDormand of Fargo was awarded the Academy Award in 1996 instead. Emily Watson is emotionally drained by the time her last scene airs and you get the sense that she played Bess as she went taking chances and relishing her material. She has such an expressive face and is such an all rounded character that any weaknesses in the plot simply don't matter any more. She carries the film entirely. Stellan Skarsgard, a most underrated actor in my opinion plays Bess's husband and is also superb, and the supporting cast includes the late Katrin Cartlidge as Watson's sister-in-law, and cult legend Udo Kier.

Conclusion:

To me, life is short and precious. I need it to mean something. I need to live life to its fullest by trying to put meaning into things that are important. Otherwise, despite my faith, life would seem empty. Life can't be a mere test ground that determines whether we are worthy of entering heaven or face hell. We are meant to experience the joy of loving, the warmth of being loved, the sorrow of losing a loved one, and what it must feel like to say goodbye to loved ones. I think that's what life is all about -- fully realizing each facet of love.

A true landmark in visual artistry and a film whose shrouded messages will haunt me till the end of my days. A film that can stir up every known emotion and it manages to create some new ones too. It changed my life.... Changed my way of thinking. Without a doubt the best movie I've seen my entire life!!!

Title: Breaking the waves (1996)

Director: Lars von Trier

Cast: Stellan Skarsgard , Emily Watson , Katrin Cartlidge

Rated R for strong sexuality

Country: Denmark

Language: English

DVD Features: photo gallery

Trailers

Trailer Link :www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_3Nio8P5gQ

Torrent file name : Breaking The Waves.torrent