Joseph Young
Screenwriter
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2001
- Messages
- 1,352
I've become the HTF's resident Lars Von Trier basher, so why stop now?
[rant]Breaking the Waves[/rant]:
She spends the entire film sacrificing herself, giving herself away due to the fact that her husband is irredeemably paralyzed from the neck down. The moment her painful agony finally subsides (cause she's dead), her husband miraculously recovers all of his health. Either her 'sacrifice' brought him back to life, which in the context of the film is pointless and masogynistic -- or it's a simple twist of fate timed just perfectly to summon a collective gasp of ironic sorrow from the audience.
Either way you look at it, it's insulting. And I would have no problem with it were there some believability, truth, or dramatic explanation for it in the context of the plot and characters up until that point. But it just feels inserted artificially. The last shot of pealing Church Bells tolling high up in the sky to signal she 'earned her wings' by dutifully obeying her husband, it's nauseatingly false.
Joseph
[rant]Breaking the Waves[/rant]:
She spends the entire film sacrificing herself, giving herself away due to the fact that her husband is irredeemably paralyzed from the neck down. The moment her painful agony finally subsides (cause she's dead), her husband miraculously recovers all of his health. Either her 'sacrifice' brought him back to life, which in the context of the film is pointless and masogynistic -- or it's a simple twist of fate timed just perfectly to summon a collective gasp of ironic sorrow from the audience.
Either way you look at it, it's insulting. And I would have no problem with it were there some believability, truth, or dramatic explanation for it in the context of the plot and characters up until that point. But it just feels inserted artificially. The last shot of pealing Church Bells tolling high up in the sky to signal she 'earned her wings' by dutifully obeying her husband, it's nauseatingly false.
Joseph