It happened that I just watched "Happy Lazzaro" yesterday, and the religious knowledge in it helped to understand this film.
First of all, "Breaking the Waves" mainly discusses the relationship between love and redemption, and the director continued this discussion in a more straightforward dialogue in "This House Was Made by Me". In "Breaking the Waves", love completes redemption.
In character setting, Bess is a redeemer like Lazaro. The film first explains that she is a dedicated person; she tolerates outsiders; she has experienced hardships; she is pure and kind; she is innocent and refined The image of Lazaro is similar to the image of Jesus in Lazaro. Likewise, the religious rulers in the film are hypocritical and dictatorial; the believers are blind believers, ignorant, and kind.
In the plot, Bess finally reaps the love that came from Jan after praying for many years, which appeared like a miracle. But during the wedding, we learned that there is no bell in the church, and unblessed marriages have hidden dangers here. What kind of bad luck will happen to an unblessed village?
Immediately afterwards, we saw the church's deprivation of women's voice and status, not allowing women to speak in the church, and not allowing women to watch funerals. The customary burial curse in the village was discovered by the outsider Jan, both verifying the ruler's hegemony and hypocrisy. The hidden danger of tragedy deepened again.
Bess, who sincerely prayed for the early return of her lover, but waited for Jan to be paralyzed due to an accident. She began to wonder if her intentions were too sincere to cause her divine power to manifest, and she also blamed herself for not being able to wait obediently, which opened her up. road to redemption. Here, in her dialogue with the doctor, she discusses "some people live but die."
In redemption, her bargaining chip is sex, one of the seven original sins, with sexual sacrifice in exchange for her lover's life, and finally her own life. It's interesting that every sacrifice Bess seems to lose his mind, can be exchanged for Jan's condition to improve, I think this is a miracle that the director deliberately arranged; like the Lazaro/Jesus story. Jan's role also changes in the film, from suspicious, to disgusting, to good and rebellious, and finally, as Bess prayed, Jan was redeemed. At the end of the film, the miracle came again, and the church bells from God's perspective followed the ship after Bess was buried at sea.
Borrow two religious symbols from "Lazaro". Water represents birth-death-resurrection, purification and redemption, reproduction and growth, which may be related to the setting of the scene. The residence of Mian Chaohai and the way of burial at sea have already covered the cover of funeral stories. While the moon represents women, the full moon represents the completion of the ritual of redemption.
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