Even his most "accessible" work--the TV mini-series The Kingdom--seemed designed to put off theatrical audiences. While the show was involving and hilariously funny, von Trier opted for theatrical distribution in the U.S. rather than the more logical television possibilities; as a result, viewers were asked to plunk down a double-admission price to sit through five hours of a subtitled Danish video transfer. Sure, it was worthwhile for those who bravely made the commitment of time, money, and energy--but who, other than die-hard von Trier buffs (whose numbers are hardly legion), bothered to?
If the flatly lit visual style and high-spirited hijinks of The Kingdom came as a shock to fans of the director's earlier films, his current offering, Breaking the Waves, will almost as surely defy their expectations. Visually, it combines the wobbly hand-held realism of The Kingdom with the sumptuous unreality of Zentropa. As a narrative, it continually skews off in unexpected directions while homing in on, ever so relentlessly, its central concerns--whether or not God exists and what the hell He's up to if He does.
I'm not kidding. This is a dark, often funny walk through Ingmar Bergman turf--a territory so fraught with heavy-handed pretension and posturing that, in most directors' hands, I would end up running screaming from the theater. Yet von Trier, through a combination of solid performances and carefully modulated tone, manages to avoid almost all the pitfalls of such a weighty subject.
Nearly two hours and 40 minutes long, Breaking the Waves is divided into seven chapters and an epilogue. Each chapter is introduced with a beautiful, idealized landscape--probably a combination of live-action cinematography and a glass painting--and a rock and roll oldie. The opening is deceptively simple: We could be watching a trivial soap opera about the trials of young married couples. Chapter One, "Bess Gets Married," introduces Bess (Emily Watson), a sweet slip of a girl from a small town in Scotland. The town elders are grilling her before giving permission for her wedding to Jan (Stellan Skarsgard), an outsider who works the offshore oil rigs. The elders' severity is such that we might think we were watching a 19th-century period piece; but, indeed, this is the early 1970s, not that the rigid Calvinist villagers seem to have noticed.
At Bess and Jan's wedding, Dodo (Katrin Cartlidge), the wife of Bess's late brother, gives a moving speech about how special and wonderful Bess is. Right beneath the loving appreciation is the hint of something unspoken, some forbidden topic that everyone on screen understands but the audience doesn't. It's so subtle you might not even notice it.
Von Trier doesn't keep us in suspense for long: Near the beginning of Chapter Two, Bess is in church, praying by herself and thanking God for finally giving her someone to love. Suddenly her expression changes, and we discover Bess isn't quite the simple village girl we had taken her for. Without giving everything away, let's simply say that the phrase "religious psychosis" leaps to mind.
This initial revelation is soon compounded. When Bess begins to grow frantic over Jan's imminent departure for work--his job keeps him away for weeks at a time--her stern mother warns her to stop acting up or it's back to tha hospital wi' ya. But Bess is convinced that her brief happiness has come as a favor from the frightening God she has been raised to worship...and that only God can save her from the agony of Jan's absence. When his first few weeks of work drive her to the edge of insanity--if she fits any reasonable definition of sane in the first place--she prays for his return. And, as in such classic moralistic horror tales as "The Monkey's Paw," she gets her wish...at a terrible price.
More details would spoil some of the experience of watching Breaking the Waves. Suffice it to say that the description above only takes us about a third through the story. As reality becomes more and more grim, so does Bess's religious obsession make more and more outrageous demands on her.
What is bizarre is that, despite the film's ironic view of Bess's beliefs, the plot unfolds in a manner that tends to affirm the town's horrible religious ideology. What Bess has been taught is authoritarian gibberish more horrifying and rigid than the most Neanderthal fire-and-brimstone terrors one is likely to encounter in the worst backwoods church in America. Yet after carefully straddling the fence throughout, von Trier chooses to end the film on a simplistic, greeting-card image of faith. Like the village elders, he seems to be validating the existence of God...but the domineering, judgmental, vengeful God of the most hidebound Protestant sect.
Emily Watson, in her film debut, gives an astonishing performance. She is in nearly every scene, mixing elfin appeal and slightly lame-brained good cheer with a sense of doom and insanity. It's a tribute both to her and to von Trier that near the end, when the film is at its most tragic, her character says something so seemingly naive and foolish that the audience laughs--even as we are filled with grief over where those very qualities have led her.
Breaking the Waves.
Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard, Katrin and Udo Kier. Written and directed by Lars von Trier. Now showing.
