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100A movie about the passions of simple people, and it's done with such extraordinary empathy and commitment that it all but pulls you under. [29 November 1996, Friday, p.A]
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100Not many movies like this get made, because not many filmmakers are so bold, angry and defiant.
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One of the most emotionally devastating movies of the decade.
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100One of the most haunting and vital movies of the year.
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100Not only one of the best films of the year, it's one of the best films of the decade.
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100True art is a journey to somewhere you've never been, and there has never been a movie quite like Breaking the Waves.
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90"Waves" is a spellbinder.
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90What Von Trier arrives at is a complex, contemporary, and deeply moving exploration of faith.
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90A narrative path leading from the sincere to the ludicrous, and culminating in a final image of flabbergasting transcendance, gives Breaking the Waves its surprising power.
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90There are few movies around that take such huge risks: this is high-wire filmmaking, without a net of irony.
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90Watson is a major find as Bess. Graced with delicate, expressive features, she gives an extraordinary performance.
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89With this artlessly profound and affecting story of love, von Trier emerges as one of those blessed filmmakers who've managed to blend their early stylistic flamboyance with enough human empathy to make their work both visually and emotionally compelling.
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88If not for a somewhat forced catharsis during the epilogue (the weakest segment of the movie), Breaking the Waves would have been more wrenching than it is.
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80A trying, contrary mix of religion and carnality that teeters on the verge of preposterous self-indulgence.
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80This long, sometimes hard-to-watch movie is a challenge, but it has authority and raw power.
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80In its pagan fervor, this is an almost religious experience.
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80This is a dark, often funny walk through Ingmar Bergman turf.
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70Whether or not Breaking the Waves succeeds as a profound work is something that's hard to say after one viewing, but it is certainly a wholly original piece of work.
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70You won't come out of it indifferent, and even if it winds up enraging you (I could have done without most of the ending myself), it nonetheless commands attention.
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60Audiences are likely to embrace Breaking the Waves as something rare and fierce and innovative, a passport into the depths of passion, but some people will reconsider when they get home.
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50The longer the movie drones on, the queasier it gets. [6 June 1997, Life, p.3D]
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50Shallow where it would be meaningful, demanding leaps of faith it has not earned, this film's marriage of arresting technique to empty thinking is not unique, only frustrating.
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40It was a bleak allegory -- a desperate, sullen, and moderately sick tale.
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30Although it contains many visually compelling passages and some provocative moments, the movie is strangely banal and simplistic.
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30For this mortal, the film converts piety into pathology and then converts it back again at the end with a Song of Bernadette conclusion. I don't know what the title means. I do know that this ridiculous film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.[ Dec. 9, 1996]
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 11 out of 14
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Mixed: 0 out of 14
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Negative: 3 out of 14
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LauraG10You just can't close your mouth once the movie has finished.
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JayH7
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antoñete10Unforgettable masterpiece with a masterclass perfomance by Emily Watson as Bess McNeill.