Delayed Reaction: Breaking the Waves

Premise: After a terrible accident to her husband, a wife starts sleeping with other men by her husband's request as a way to heal him.

 

In my mind, Lars von Trier exists somewhere between Gaspar Noe and Terence Malick. He's got the provocation of Noe and the artiness of Malick. It's an interesting mix. I haven't seen many of his movies. Breaking the Waves marks only my second after Melancholia. Honestly, I'm pretty intimidated by most of his movies. I'm not going to just casually put on a Lars von Trier movie. Who just hits play on Nymphomaniac Vol. I on a whim?

 

Breaking the Waves seemed like the safest re-entry point for von Trier. I mean, it pulled an Oscar nomination for Emily Watson. Surely, if the pearl-clutching Oscar voters who embraced Babe just the year before could get Watson a nomination for this, it wouldn't be too weird. And it is interesting watching Breaking the Waves. For the first half of the movie, it's pretty normal. Almost dull. Watson and Stellan Skarsgard get married. He has to go away to work his job on an oil rig, where he eventually gets seriously injured. Sure, Watson is a little intense. She has the odd "conversations" with God, that sound a lot like Gollum talking to Smeagol and she's obviously co-dependent. About midway in, it takes the turn. Skarsgard tells Watson that since he can't sexually gratify her anymore, she needs to seek it out from other men. He thinks if she then tells him about it, that will make him stronger.

 

There's the Lars von Trier I was waiting for.

 

That part of the movie gets rather dark and twisted as Watson defiles herself more and more, at great personal cost. She's rejected from her community and eventually assaulted to death. I think von Trier does a good job of being provocative with purpose. While this story is weird, it doesn't feel like von Trier is doing this just because he thinks it'll get a rise out of people to see Watson defiled like this.

 

I'm more familiar with War Horse/The Theory of Everything-era Emily Watson, so this was a very surprising performance for me to see. She's excellent in her feature film debut...I need a minute to get my head around that. That's a hell of an introduction. It would be easy for her to go too big with the performance or move into melodrama. In the wrong hands, those "conversations" with God would be very silly. She keeps it all tethered to reality though. If anything from this movie was going to get an Oscar nomination, she's it.

 

I still couldn't separate myself from the thought that von Trier was making some decisions only to make an audience uncomfortable rather than just focusing on the right storytelling decision. So, I watched this movie with some distance that I couldn't resolve. It's good but pretty specific.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend