Per Johnsen
When this film was finished I just had to sit calmly and let out some of the mood I was stuck in. My tears were running, and there were many others sitting behind in the cinema. Even when the marquee was finished and the lights came on, the sobbing was still noticeable. Never have so many been sitting behind for so long. I went outside and had a cigarette together with a friend couple. We just stood there petrified and nobody said anything. After a while a guy came wrestling out the door with a big cardboard figure of Leslie Nielsen, an advert for Spy Hard, and he even carried it on to the smallest car around. It broke the ice and we just had to laugh. This says a lot about what Breaking The Waves did to us.
I haven't dared to see it again. If you haven't - do it.
valadas
Love above all. That seems to be the theme, the leit-motiv of this movie. However although this theme could deliver the necessary ingredients to make a good movie, it becomes too strange to be good. A young naive girl falls in love with a man a bit older than her but who corresponds deeply to her love. Their mutual love is physically and spiritually overwhelming. All this takes place in a remote place of northern Scotland where a puritanical and fundamentalist religious community dominates and morally rules. The husband works at sea in an oil rig and suffers a serious accident there which breaks his neck making him totally disabled. This fact unchains a series of actions and reactions also in psychological and affective terms, some of them very odd, uncommon and perverted, namely in the sexual field that reveal that they both have neurotic personalities which makes those events a bit difficult to be accepted in terms of reality or to have an aesthetic value in terms of cinema or literature. This movie is of some value only for its good direction and excellent performance of all actors and actresses.
dlpburke
When Roger arrives on the scene to praise a movie that's hardly known or recommended, you just know he's doing his usual and relentless routine of The Emperor's New Clothes. Seriously, the man is a total fool. He even looks like one. It's nothing to do with rating a movie fairly or intelligently, and everything to do with him trying to convince people that he is an intellectual/movie expert, which he is not. He's just a rather silly man who should have become a wine taster—another phony-baloney load of pretentious crap.This film is ridiculous. Like most bad movies, the two most serious flaws are the pacing and the plot. Both are awful here. Some mentally ill woman (who talks to God, and then replies to herself, of course) is made even more mentally unstable when her crippled husband decides he wants her to romp with every man she can, so he can get off on the details. And she does. It sounds like some sort of bad porn movie, doesn't it? But, apparently, that's not what the writers were going for.There isn't any believability to it, either. She just does it—no questions asked. No-one does a thing about it, despite the fact the whole village knows she needs help. The churchgoers throw her out. But the worst part of all this is that I've just summed up the entire movie for you. That's what they shove down your throat for two and a half hours. But I suppose it's better than what she was having shoved down her throat for much longer. The ending is the icing on the cake, which seems to be the pattern with the worst culprits. I.e., Vertigo, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Fight Club. Nothing turns Roger Ebert on more than a film about nothing. Believe that, because it's true.There really isn't anything about this film that makes one want to watch it a second time, unless you get off on it, like the woman's husband. It's just a plodding monstrosity of a film, and the good acting cannot save it. I am so tired of movies as bad and pretentious as this one getting high ratings simply because of liars, half-wits, and con men.1/5
nadiapandolfo-910-187748
This is hands down, one of the best movies of all time. I watched it again for the third time and loved it even more than the first time I saw it. It is a beautiful, both complex and simple, powerful, compelling and heart-breaking love story that is also deeply spiritual. Though very sad, it is also uplifting in the end. It will make you laugh, cry and think about what is truly important in life. This is filmmaking at its finest--one of Lars Von Tiers best works. Emily Watson is mesmerizing. She was nominated for an Oscar for this role and should have won. This is one of the best performances by an actress ever. Stellan Skarsgard is also wonderful. This film is like eating a fine delicacy. I could watch it again and again. It really holds up to the test of time. I am sure in another 20 years people will still be talking about this film.
AD
