MovieChat Forums > Breaking the Waves (1996) Discussion > An Absolute Nihilistic Garbage

An Absolute Nihilistic Garbage

posted 18 years ago by inbar_sh
66 replies | jump to latest

I saw Two and a Half films of 'Von' Trier: 'Breaking the waves'' Dogville' and Most of 'Dancing in the dark' and I felt the same about them all. an Awful Moviemaking. It Combines Sick mind, Immature Characters, Rediculus Plots and above all, Preverted and Mean point of view about the world and the Human nature, Superficial and disrespectful attitude about Religion and Angloamerican culture ,Uglyness , cheap Photography and Production.
I would not bother to comment on those films, but The sad fact that Trier is so Highly appriciated and so much (Over) Rated I feel that I must put my Unpopular view on the table and say : This king is naked. There is absolutely nothing there.
I will try to make a short Comparison Between Trier and David Lynch Who is in my opinion, a Great ,Unic and Underrated filmmaker. some people found similarity between him and Von Trier. In Lynch films there are so many beautiful and pure things like a perfect Aesthetics, Sadness and yearning to a lost and innocent world. The Evil in Lynch films is always balanced with a Good and Humane behavior. The good is always within reach. Although There is some similarity between them, especially in repersenting Females as Tragic victims in most of Lynch and Trier films The difference in both Artistic and Moral point of views is Huge.

Inbar Sh,
Israel

[–] brownje5 16 years ago

Breaking the Waves is a savage attack on Presbyterian Orthodox Calvinism. The weapons used are absurd drama and sexual provocation. Although an American Congregationalist, Jonathan Edwards best expressed this theology in 1741 with his infamous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". To say that a filmmaker is an Arminian is almost a tautology. Nevertheless, belief in a transcendent God is shared by all. Is this the happy ending to this melodrama?

[–] tim-baines 16 years ago

really, it's not a savage attack on Presbyterian Orthodox Calvinism. Where did you get that from?

[–] brownje5 16 years ago

The Church sees sin and condemns. GOD sees love and redeems.

[–] datadesigns 14 years ago

"The Church sees sin and condemns. GOD sees love and redeems."

It would certainly seem so, after watching this film!

[–] josephx23 16 years ago

I'm not sure where you're seeing this "savage attack" on, as you put it, "Presbyterian Orthodox Calvinism." And how is it tautological that von Trier is an Arminian? Far from being some sort of abstruse sixteenth century polemic about the freedom of the will, it seems that Breaking the Waves explores issues of sexual desire and spiritual desire, self-fulfillment and sacrifice, judgment and grace. The ultra-legalistic church members don't represent an historic theological position like Calvinism or Lutheranism; they represent a kind of religion that denies the goodness of creation, that privileges the spiritual over against the physical, that distorts morality to the point that mercy is only a thin veneer over a grotesque monster divinity. However, this critique of self-righteous "spirituality" is accompanied by a robust celebration of the redemptive power of love - through Bess' passion for her husband and her willingness to sacrifice herself, he really does "take up his bed and walk" like the paralytic of the Gospel according to St. John. And far from leaving us with a "happy ending," we are left at the end of the film with the image of resurrection; the risen Jan looks up to the church bells, his healing brought about miraculously by one who was willing to humble herself to the point of death.

I find it amusing that you describe sexual attraction as a "weapon." I seem to recall another story in which, long before the advent of sin and death on the scene, "the man and the woman were naked, and they were not ashamed."

[–] brownje5 16 years ago

Again, the Church sees sin and condemns; GOD sees love and redeems.
What if von Trier had been a secular humanist (atheist) or a Druid (pantheist)?
Happiness is knowing that there is a GOD in heaven so that when the ego dies the soul can ascend to eternal life.
Is this story about Jan or Bess? I thought Jan looked up to the bells of heaven as affirmation that Bess's soul had ascended to heaven rather than been consigned to hell by the Church.

[–] Eva_Marrie 10 years ago

"Happiness is knowing that there is a GOD in heaven so that when the ego dies the soul can ascend to eternal life."

I don't get how that would make anyone happy - 1 life is hard enough to get through. Eternal life seems like the worst possible existential nightmare.

[–] przgzr 16 years ago

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF,REMEMBER THE ROMANS?

Oh, yes, we do remember.

We remember Romans who had to conquer the world to show how big, one and only military power they were. They sticked their nose in every corner in the world to make everyone accept their way of life, their culture, religion, traditions, and of course leadership. They had to intervene in every possible misunderstanding in the world and bring peace the way that made them rule over both sides (Pax Romana). They knew how to make allies, how to give them false feeling of power so they would do dirty jobs for them (Divide et impera). They were most powerful and richest people in the world, and most wars were led because those rich wanted to have more, always more, and the moment they found that somewhere exist some sources that don't belong to them, a new crisis and war was induced. And the most dirty games were played in their homeland, especially when new leader had to be chosen (or the current one discredited and eliminated).

So, I wonder, who does it remind me on? Lars von Triers homeland and that part of the world, as you said? I wouldn't be so sure.

Historia est magistra vitae, said Romans. Too bad that the world never remembers that.

[–] eskaden 16 years ago

and excessive capitalization and parenthetical usage is...
no one has claimed Lynch as underrated, he gets more press as a director than most "hollywood" filmmakers and absolutely more than Von Trier. primarily positive press. in a time of so many over rated directors, the debate over Von Trier is at least refreshing.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] iarwain-1 14 years ago

the author of this thread was a n00b.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] brian-tipton 14 years ago

David Lynch is one of the most OVERrated directors on planet earth.

[–] SeisCinemaSeis 14 years ago

The OP is so wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to start.
First of all it's NOT a nihilistic movie. Do you even know what "nihilism" means? I doubt it.
The film is not a negation of religion, god or anything else, in fact "Breaking the Waves" and its main character (Bessie) is a life-affirming character, a character whose martyrdom shows to the audience how much damage can cause the dark religion or fundamentalism in contrast with the humanism displayed by the rest of the characters who aren't bigots.
The movie is not ambiguos at all, makes a point, a very clear and loud point that tolls at the end of the movie. So where the *beep* is the "nihilism"? Nonsense!
Second of all if you consider this movie as mere "garbage" you may be either one of those religious zealots, a pharisee, or simply an ignoramus with the worst taste on movies.

BTW Lynch is a mere dilettante compared to Lars von Trier.

[–] franzkabuki 14 years ago

It sure has plenty of problems - it´s annoyingly manipulative and heavy handed (the f-cking heavenly bells in the end being obviously the chief offender - from the moment the point about their absence is made in the beginning, one need not be a psychic to guess what´ll happen by the end), making priests & village dimwits WAY too easy to hate. Also, the religious guilt crap gets irritating pretty fast and the film generally is pretty predictable & often strangely primitive stuff. It does have sort of an undeniable primal power to it however which does well to obliterate lots of the negative aspects - and it´s amazingly acted, too.

As for the Lynch connection the OP talks about... well, it´s true that in Lynch, there´s almost always a careful balance between light and darkness while Trier seems nihilistic to boot. Otherwise I don´t really see any connection at all - Lynch being a director with a perfect understanding for abstraction and an incomparably richer visual imagination (Trier shakes his handheld camera around a lot and often sticks it into character´s faces, but that´s about it). And, of course, Lynch has never been this ham fisted or literal minded.

Fact remains though - BTW worked good while it lasted, but the more I think about it in the hindsight, the less I seem to like it. Gets a 7,5/10 rating.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] maawan 14 years ago

Watched it three years ago. I was deeply emotionally disturbed by this movie. What a strong spiritual movie. Could not work properly in my office the next day, just kept thinking about it. I have to say that its one of the best depressing movie I have seen. Requim for a dream was other. I have also watched Leaving Las Vagas but was dissapointed by it.

[–] Tchoutoye 14 years ago

I seriously don't understand why so many people feel the need to react so strongly against von Trier as a person, as if he is criminally insane or inherently Evil.

Are his films really that sick compared to those of other directors in, let's say, gangster or horror films that feature forms of torture and have body counts by the dozens? Only one person dies in Breaking the Waves. What makes it so mean, so perverted, so superficial, so disrespectful, so dehumanising, so awful? If his films are really so superficial, how can they have so many other nasty traits at the same time? Surely something must be going on?

Von Trier is certainly not the first director to criticise established religion. There is a long tradition that includes Bunuel, Pasolini, Monty Python, Brian dePalma, etc. And like some other directors who criticise the excesses of religion, von Trier does so not because he is a Satanist or an Atheist out to destroy religion, but precisely because he is a religious person who wants to purify it into something better.

Similarly, he is not the first film maker to look critically at Angloamerican culture. Again many have done so: Oliver Stone, Michael Moore are just two who have done so openly, while usually it is done more obliquely. One argument that is used is that, as a Dane, he is an outsider and he has "no right to criticise the culture of others". But Angloamerican culture has become so pervasive globally that its influence is virtually unavoidable, no matter where you live. And aren't Americans themselves often disrespectful of other cultures?

I suspect what annoys most people is purely his aesthetics: the grainy picture, the jerky hand-held camera movements, the jump cuts, etc. Somehow people feel the need to interpret his cinematography as motivated by an evil mind that is out to corrupt the world by imposing his lack of conventional gloss.

You don't have to like his films, for whatever reasons, but to attack von Trier with such vehement character assassination is irrational.

[–] 14 years ago

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