Breaking the Waves ***** (1996, Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgård) – Classic Movie Review 1703

Danish co-writer/director Lars Von Trier’s 1996 movie is maybe still this most important of film-maker’s finest. And it’s Islington-born actress Emily Watson’s too, in her very first film, aged 29. She was Oscar nominated as Best Actress.

A young, religious Scotswoman (Watson) falls for a Danish oil rig engineer (Stellan Skarsgård) and marries him. But he’s paralysed in an accident, and, encouraged by him to have sex with others, she becomes town trollop self-deluding with the idea that it will somehow cure him. Tragedy results.

This long (159 minutes), difficult film is utterly brilliant and totally devastating. Trier’s use of the Dogme hand-held camera and gritty, pseudo documentarist-style film-making brings great immediacy and pays off best here of all his films.

In a very rare movie about faith and belief, Watson is wonderful – a real heartbreaking performance.

Watson says: ‘It’s a very strong film, but it doesn’t dictate at any stage what you should think. In some ways it’s simple – a love story, a tragedy – but it treads a very fine line between that and something more ambivalent and much darker.’

Jean-Marc Barr, Katrin Cartlidge, Udo Kier, Adrian Rawlins, Jonathan Hackett, Sandra Voe and Mikkel Gaup co-star.

Peter Asmussen is the co-writer and Robby Müller provides the exciting cinematography. Music by Johann Sebastian Bach, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and Rod Stewart.

Rated R for strong graphic sexuality, nudity, language and some violence.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1703

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com/