To be completely honest, after seeing this film, I could help but ask myself the essential question "What's the bloody point?" This is also the question that I sometimes ask myself after seeing Tarkovsky films. Tarkovsky, however, includes unforgettable images and deep philosophical musings along with his longeurs. Call me shallow, but I found neither of these elements here.
I'm sick of "important" films. I'm sick of "art." Don't directors know that it isn't any trick to be self-indulgent on celluloid? The trick is to connect with the audience at either an intellectual or visceral level (or better yet, both), which this film does only sporadically.
Perhaps the Danish director Lars von Trier might have made a better film by emulating the great Scottish filmmakers: using humor. The Scots are not a humorless poeple, after all. There are a few moments of dark humor in the film, as when main character Bess (Emily Watson) services (for lack of a better word) a man on the bus. For a few moments she becomes alive. The wedding sequence is also very funny, with the discomfort that exists between the free-and-easy oil-rig workers and the Scottish villagers, who are stiff in excelsis. For the remaining 150 minutes, however, we get nothing but wall-to-wall angst.
Certainly Emily Watson should be recognized for an extraordinarily devoted performance: she gives everything to this role. The question, however remains: is this role worth giving everything to? Bess, a repressed Scottish girl, is married to a Danish oil-rig worker, and lives in sexual ecstasy until he has to go back to work. Her parting from him is embarassingly emotional, and she reveals through her actions that she is mentally ill. She prays for him to come back earlier than expected, and he does, but as a quadroplegic after he suffered an accident aboard the oil-rig. Unable to physically enjoy sex, he demands that she seek out liaisons with other men and tell him about them. This causes Bess to (A) become an outcast in her village and (B) become unhinged mentally.
The film is done in the style of "cinema verite" (which apparently is French for "shaky camera", which only adds to the feeling that it is a piece of pretentious self-indulgence. It has several points that could serve as its ending, but continues on for, it seems like, forever. The one part of this film that I really liked, was the title cards for each "chapter" of the film, accompanied by great 70's rock. In all, however, this film is a big deal about very little.
Copyright 1997 by Dale G. Abersold
