Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

grantss Bess McNeill is a young woman living in a conservative coastal village in Scotland. Against the wishes of her church she marries Jan, a Scandinavian worker on an oil rig. She is insanely in love with Jan and can't bear it when he leaves to do his shift on the oil rig. Then Jan is injured at work and everything changes.A Lars von Trier movie that covers some interesting themes – obsessive relationships, euthanasia, manipulation, dogma and the lengths people go to for love. Some of these are only touched on though, with no real development or conclusion. Moreover, the story is told in a very drawn-out fashion. The movie could easily have been less than two hours long but von Trier stretches it out to over 2 ½ hours through extending scenes well beyond their usefulness and including scenes that add nothing to the movie.Not entirely engaging either, so the 2 ½ hours moves quite slowly. Bess is not a very likable character – irascible, controlling, intense and a tad insane. Ending is quite emotional though and provides good closure to the story. Another plus is the great soundtrack.Overall, reasonably interesting but is a test of patience.

bmoviep 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.

sharky_55 If I had a dollar for every time 'devastating' was used to describe a Lars Von Trier film, I would have...well, a lot of money. He continually relishes on images that shock the mind and soul. He is admired for his ability to not hold back. His ties to Dogme 95 are evident, but paradoxically, here he makes it a deliberate stylistic endeavour; his favoured nervy, hand-held style, the washed out palette, the graininess of the image. How ironic that in the pursuit of authenticity and simplicity he had taken an extra, unnatural step - the filtered look of the film was achieved by transferring the stock to video and back again. The desired impression is the guise of naturalism and realism, as if we were observing the events ourselves. But this collapses on itself when we are the only ones in the scene with Emily Watson. Suddenly the fragility takes on a different meaning. We become perverse intruders on a mental breakdown, but there is no one here save for the audience, so it is performance we are witnessing. To her credit, Watson keeps us guessing whilst the script is more direct. It presents to us a child, without any tangible prospects or abilities, who throws tantrums when control is wrested away from her because of the real world's demands. She counts the days on the calendar until her beloved Jan returns, but this isn't enough - Von Trier feels the need to throw in a crude, stick figure drawing as though she is a kindergartner with a crush. The first time she responds to her own prayer in a deeper intonation (God is Irish, apparently), it is mildly humorous, but by the end it is tragic. Watson is good enough to seed doubt in our minds. When her faith begins to waver, these prayers lose their mystical quality and just once, she responds as God in her normal voice. She shows glimpses of Bess' logic and reason when she wrests with her own conscience and selfishness. In the very early beginnings, she acknowledges the camera and invites us into her mind, cheekily grinning and almost winking at what is to come. There are brief moments of heart and stability; see how Watson makes phone sex endearing and cute, how she pauses and hesitates to be explicit, because her religion has coded her against it. So to dive into the deep end, and go against these teachings must demonstrate incredible strength and willpower, must it not? A oft criticism of the film is that it treats Bess not only in childish terms, but as a surrogate for battering, being shoved along without agency and subject to continually harsher abuse. She is confined by the patriarchal constructs of the religion, raised a virgin and cursed to hell for her sins (but those sins which are an act of bravery and pure love). A gender reversal would not only be illogical and radical, but conjure none of the shock. Von Trier is vague about the origins of her development and capabilities, and hastily sidesteps this dilemma. He answers the true question with his final sequences, which are steeped in Christian allegory: the public denouncing by the church (the Pharisees), the Christlike sacrifice by taking the burden of sin, the desecration of the grave for and the spiritual rebirth (at sea), with the bells signalling the miracles that we have witnessed. It's religious propaganda, and not subtle at that; Bess must be put through figurative hell (the result of her own sin) before she finally gains her martyrdom. And it is typical Von Trier, a cruel joke played by a cruel god. She dies with the knowledge that she has failed her husband, and is going to literal hell. Only then can Jan begin to walk again.

Maz Murdoch (asda-man) Dancer in the Dark is one of the most emotionally devastating films I've ever seen. It's one of the extremely few films to actually make me cry and its sheer power makes it Lars Von Trier's masterpiece for me. When I heard about Breaking the Waves and how it's part of the same 'Golden Hearts' trilogy as Dancer in the Dark, I just had to see it. I'm not a normal cinema-goer who goes out to see mainstream films for entertainment. Of course, I do do this from time to time. I'm not a complete film snob. However, the films which I admire the most are the ones which pack a strong emotional punch which you never forget. I love depressing films which stun me into silence and play on my mind for days after seeing it. Breaking the Waves is one of these films.Whilst I personally don't think it's quite as good as Dancer in the Dark (I just love how Dancer in the Dark is a musical and everything) it's certainly not far off, and is definitely one of Lars Von Trier's (a director I admire very much) greatest films and one of the greatest films I've ever seen period. Just like Dancer in the Dark, the film opens on a happy and humorous note. Our hero, Bess is getting married to the love of her life, Jan and everyone's having a wonderful time. Not least is Bess who discovers the magical powers of making love. A stark contrast to the loveless sex she has during the crushing final hour of the film.Lars presents their love as an honest and pure one. It's cleverly against the backdrop of a god-fearing, miserable Scottish village that aren't very Christian at all. It shows how damaging religion can be to someone as childlike and naive as Bess, who regularly plays out conversations with God and imagines Him as a cruel and impatient old man with no sympathy for anyone. Lars takes his time in telling the story. The first part of the film looks at how in love Bess is with Jan. She's absolutely infatuated with him and is outrageously devastated when he has to go back to the oilrigs for some time. Emily Watson makes Bess' pain feel all the more overwhelming with her realistic portrayal of hysteria.Like most of Lars' films, Breaking the Waves is broken up into a series of chapters. Each one becomes more disturbing as the film goes on. Many have accused Lars of being sadistic and nihilistic in his treatment of Bess, however I disagree. If Lars wanted to be sadistic then he would have been much more explicit in the latter scenes of the film and wouldn't have given as much time to allow Bess to develop as a character. As I said before, the film is very patient in telling the story and whilst I wasn't bothered or bored by this at all others may be. It's important to be patient with the film and allow yourself to immerse yourself in it. The earlier scenes which depict Bess anticipating Jan's arrival are slow but extremely important. It just shows how much Bess is in love with Jan, and how childlike and charming this love is.When Jan is paralysed we feel Bess' pain. She sticks by him and just wants to be with him. It's all the more tragic that this is her undoing. Bess' descent into sexual degradation and humiliation becomes increasingly more painful to watch. It's all the more excruciating as the film is shot on Lars' signature raw hand-held camera which gives the film an incredible sense of documentary realism. There's nothing you can do but weep for poor Bess and her immature ways of thinking. I didn't cry, but I almost did. Tears filled in my eyes in some parts and a very potent lump formed in my throat. It's an incredibly powerful look of a woman's life spiralling into madness.Breaking the Waves is a powerful and heart-breaking piece of cinema. Emily Watson is incredible as Bess and really does immerse herself in her character. I don't know who else Emily was up against in the Oscars, but I'm pretty sure she should've won. The surrealistic ending is bound to infuriate many, but for me it just confirmed the film as a masterpiece. It was the perfect way to end and made the film all the more powerful. It's not an easy watch and it's extremely depressing, but it's also one of the most heart-breaking experiences I've had watching a film. Lars Von Trier has created a timeless masterpiece. One which has the power to move, compel and inspire.