Review of Breaking the Waves (1996) by Cameron H — 08 Mar 2016

I could only watch this brutal film in sections, sometimes with a day or two in between. At the end, I felt physically ill. What an amazing feat of film making. I would have eliminated the visual of bells at the end, and perhaps shortened the viewing time for the chapter intro landscapes, but changed nothing else.

The casting was genius, and the script heart-wrenching. I could not watch this a second time. The characters become so real, the narrative becomes part of your own. Lars von Trier is unbelievably talented.

In my view, he's in the same league as Fellini, Antonioni and Bergman.