"Breaking the Waves"
                             A Film Review by
                           Linda Lopez McAlister
                           on "The Women's Show"
                          WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL
                             February 8, 1997
     Held over this week at the Tampa Theater (but with only an afternoon
showing scheduled) is a remarkable and unusual film called "Breaking the
Waves" by Scandinavian filmmaker Lars von Trier. I found myself both
fascinated and outraged by it, but I'm very glad I saw it. This is definitely
a film whose reception is going to be greatly influenced by the gender of the
viewer. Many male critics tend to be ecstatic about the film; female critics
tend to have severe reservations. The reasons are clear. Not just the way the
film is shot, but also its central narrative is inherently voyeuristic and
exploitative of the main female character. Then, to make matters worse, an
ending is tagged onto the film (which could, and from a feminist perspective
should have been omitted) whose only purpose seems to be to turn the
perpetrator of these outrages into a kind of hero and give it, at the last
minute a wholly inappropriate dose of sentimental spirituality. So why see it?
First and foremost for the performance of Emily Watson as Bess, one of the
most extraordinary acting accomplishments in my memory. And also because,
despite the distastefulness of the content the film is utterly compelling.

       "Breaking the Waves" was shot on location and with a hand-held camera
throughout to enhance the sense of verisimilitude. It takes place in the
barren regions of the Scottish coast. Bess is a young woman, bordering on the
retarded, who has grown up in an utterly repressive strict Scottish Calvinist
community--one so hung up on sinfulness that they consign all but the most
pious to their graves with the admonition that they're going to Hell. Bess,
with her limited understanding but enormous innocence, heart, and good will
tries with every fabric of her being to be a good girl. To do what her
parents, her Church, and most of all her God want her to do. Being good
consists in finding out what these authority figures want of her and doing it.
She finds out what this is by praying fervently and often to her God, who is
so present to her that he responds almost immediately speaking through Bess
herself, though in the lowest vocal register she can manage. For all her
piety, Bess is a gay and lively girl with huge smiling eyes and she's in love
with a man from outside this community, Jan (Stellan Skarsgtard) who works for
months at a time on an off-shore oil rig. With some trepidation the Elders
allow Bess and Jan to marry, though the contrast between him and his
hard-drinking, hell-raising buddies on leave causes a great deal of
concern--as well as some comic relief--at the wedding party. Most concerned
about Bess is her widowed sister-in-law, Dodo (Katrin Cartlidge), also an
outsider to this community who remains mainly because of her love for Bess.

      After a distressing male-fantasy scene of the groom deflowering his
bride standing up in the public bathroom at the wedding party, Bess and Jan
settle down to a brief period of marital bliss during which Bess learns to
enjoy sex greatly. Alas, he has to return to the rig and Bess misses him so
much that she prays to God that he will return. When he is immediately injured
in an accident and returns home paralyzed from the waist down, Bess assumes
her prayer has caused this. Depressed and apparently condemned to a lifetime
of paralysis, Jan asks Bess to start having sex with other men so she can
describe it to him. Given that she is nearly wholly lacking in any experience
of resisting the commands of those whom she's supposed to obey, Bess complies,
accelerating her activities until she is, in effect, sacrificed on the altar
of patriarchy. Only Dodo (what a cruel name to give virtually the only
character to scream out in anguished protest against the complete
victimization of Bess by her husband, her family, the medical establishment
-who want to commit her--and her church). The film should end with Dodo's
defiant outburst--instead, von Trier gives us the aforementioned even more
disgusting ending.

For the WMNF Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and Film.