Like depressing movies? Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves might be for you.
Breaking the Waves tells the story of Bess (Emily Watson), a naive woman with a big heart living in a rigid, god fearing community who falls in love with Jan (Stellan Skarsgaard), an oil-rig worker from out of town. The two are happily married and all seems well until Jan must return to the rig. Bess loves Jan too much to endure his absence and prays to God to bring him back home, only ten days before he's already scheduled to do so. Her prays are seemingly answered only Jan comes back paralyzed from an accident on the rig.
Fearing he can never make love to his wife again, Jan asks Bess to have sex with other men and tell him about it believing that sharing in Bess's sexual experiences will help him recover. Bess loves Jan too much not to honor his request. Bess takes to some extremely promiscuous behavior with strange, potentially dangerous men, which forces her community to turn against her. But when her actions start showing results (Jan getting better), she endures even as things become increasingly worse for herself.
I should note that the film is a period piece. I can't, for the life of me, identify the time but I gather it takes place in the Scottish highlands somewhere.
In the crudest of terms, Breaking the Waves can be seen as The Notebook for adults. The Notebook already has a reputation as being an extremely emotional film with a bittersweet ending. Breaking the Waves is that x1000. The two films also share an exploration of one person's painstaking efforts to save their lover from what appears to be a terminal illness. The key difference between the two films is that The Notebook is meant to give your heartstrings a gentle tug and nothing more. Breaking the Waves, as one would expect from a Lars von Trier film, is a much harsher exploration of love, not to mention sex, religion, guilt, family, community, terminal illness, to a certain extent, martyrdom and a whole slew of complex themes. It's also a much more brutal watch in general.
That said, Breaking the Waves is one of the best films I've ever seen. One of the best love stories as well as one of the best dramas and Lars von Trier's best film all around, surpassing both Dancer in the Dark and Antichrist.
The performances really carry the film and a lot of them, I imagine, were tough roles for any actress. Emily Watson was nominated for an Academy Award for hers and it shows. One of the best performances I've ever seen from an actress. Skarsgaard is also pretty impressive. His style is a little more reserved and laid back than usual but it serves the story and does wonders for it overall. Watson's character also has a near magnetic effect on the viewer's sympathies. She's not too bright and she knows it but her capacity for love (for her husband, family, God, etc.) is unquestionable and makes everything that happens to her extremely grueling to watch. It's definitely an emotional ride of a film.
One of the most impressive things about the film, aside from the performances, is how it uses ambiguity. This is one of the few films I've seen where God is actually a character. Not in a literal Morgan Freeman sort of way. I mean God has a genuine presence in the film. Or so it would seem. Bess prays constantly throughout the film and God seems to answer back through Bess (that is to say Bess speaks to God and then speaks back to herself as God... sorry, I'm not good at explaining this kinda stuff). Anyway, this all comes back to ambiguity. Throughout the film, one is never sure if this is Bess genuinely communicating with God or just talking to herself. There's evidence to support both. It's also ambiguous whether or not Jan's request comes from his own love for Bess, some place a little more sinister or the drugs he's constantly pumped full of, not to mention the scars in his brain from the accident.
There's evidence to suggest all which allows the viewer to draw all sorts of different interpretations from the film without being "wrong," per se. I suppose this, among other things, is how von Trier gets called a misogynist so often. I can see how people might come to that conclusion but then again, it's only one interpretation which is why I think the film works so well. It enables multiple viewing experiences.
The cinematography might turn some people off. It's basically grainy handheld the whole time. If you can look past that and focus on the story, you'll be fine. Otherwise, it might get in the way. There's also a lot of jump cuts that don't necessarily feel like they're supposed to change your movie-watching experience. They just opted not to make a better edit and keep things moving story-wise. There's also a few moments where Watson looks at the camera, seemingly for no reason. I'm thinking they're just mistakes that were left in at this point.
Sometimes this transparent filmmaking style works. In fact, I'd say it works for the most part. I enjoy the simplicity of it all. But there's definitely some moments that feel strange and stand out.
On the other hand, the film is broken up by title cards for each chapter. Each is a single shot of some kind of landscape (e.g. beach, ocean, road, bridge, creek, sunset, etc.) with classic rock music played over it (e.g. Deep Purple, Elton John, Jethro Tull). These shots actually looked great. Unlike the rest of the film, they were full of color. I don't know how they did it but they were saturated to the point where they looked like oil paintings and the music matched its respective image perfectly.
A very effective film in the most classic of senses. It's an emotional ride. Worth checking out if you can stomach it. This is definitely a tear jerker for those who don't want their tears jerked.