Review of Breaking the Waves (2014) by Alex S — 22 Sep 2017

Does true love really know no bounds? This question seems like the very springboard behind Lars von Trier's cold, controversial romance, Breaking the Waves.

The film features a timid, tender and tormented young girl (Emily Watson), brainwashed by a Calvinist cult but saved by her progressively obsessive love for a cool outsider (Stellan Skarsgard). Or so she thinks.

Watson is mesmerising as the malleable, comfort-seeking psychotic at the film's heart - a lost, psychologically-challenged soul who is manipulated as much by herself and her beliefs as she is by the people around her. This is a girl who, for her, talking to God is a literal two-way conversation between her doubts and fears, and hopes and dreams.

Her performance is breathtaking and her character is as challenging as it is chastising - we feel for her and fear her in equal measure as the film transitions from romance, through to tragedy, psychosexual chaos and jaded spirituality.

Using Watson's simple soul as a pure, human puppet, von Trier's taps into the very essence of love, hope and fear.