Breaking the Waves

Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves is a powerful melodrama with a troubling habit of treating suffering as proof of love. We recommend it, although we cannot accept everything it asks us to believe. Emily Watson’s Bess McNeill gives herself to devotion with a completeness that makes caution look almost dishonest. The film takes her faith seriously, and that willingness to risk seeming foolish gives it much of its force.

Bess belongs to a severe religious community, and von Trier puts her personal feelings up against its certainty about right and wrong. He is interested in what happens when a woman regards self-sacrifice as an obligation, especially within marriage. That is difficult material, and there is courage in making a romance so uncomfortable to watch. There is also a danger that Bess will become a convenient person to hurt whenever the film needs to insist on its importance.

Watson prevents that from happening for long stretches. Her Bess is so open in her love that we feel protective of her before we have decided what to make of her beliefs. We were upset by Watson’s unguarded expression, which makes Bess’s trust in love seem painfully vulnerable to abuse. It is an exposed performance, and its generosity keeps us close even when von Trier’s demands begin to seem unreasonable.

Robby Müller’s cinematography is an important part of that discomfort: its rawness denies us a comfortable distance from Bess. The images can be abrasive, but they suit the emotional exposure Watson allows. Karl Júlíusson’s production design helps make the community’s severity feel ordinary to those who live within it, which makes their certainty more disturbing. It is an oppressive setting for a love story, without much suggestion that Bess might be allowed to think differently.

Anders Refn’s editing gives the performances room, but the 159-minute running time still feels longer than the story needs. The repeated insistence on devotion and suffering becomes tiring, even when individual passages retain their force. Joachim Holbek’s music adds to the emotional pressure; we sometimes wished for less encouragement to feel what Watson has already made clear. Katrin Cartlidge, as Dodo McNeill, brings a welcome firmness to a film so committed to Bess’s vulnerability.

Von Trier writes as well as directs, and the responsibility for our unease belongs with him. Too often, the story asks us to accept that Bess’s willingness to suffer makes what happens to her meaningful. We can believe in her love without agreeing that cruelty is the right way to demonstrate its depth. This is where the film feels manipulative, despite the honesty of the actors, and where its seriousness becomes least convincing.

As a romance, it has little interest in the reassurance the genre can offer. Its religious questions are taken seriously enough to be disturbing, even when von Trier pushes too hard for our response. Watson is the reason we would return: she makes Bess worth attending to beyond any debate about the director’s treatment of her. Choose it when there is room for a difficult film, and do not expect the love story to provide much comfort.