As I was wandering around Blockbuster Video the other morning I saw that the Danish-Scottish film "Breaking the Waves" has just been released on that medium. I saw the movie at the cinema early last year and must say it was one of the most disturbing films I have seen. Not disturbing in the "Silence of the Lambs" sense _ it was not filled with violence or gore, nor was it particularly suspenseful. It was disturbing in a deeper, more emotional way, and in that, it spoke to me, as a Christian and to my Christian faith, in ways that very few films have ever done.

The film speaks of a young woman who lives in a small fishing village on the north coast of Scotland. It is a harsh, wind-swept land, battered by North Sea storms, constantly cold and wet. The people who have made this land their home reflect their environment _ they too are hard and cold. Their church is of the extreme, Pharisee-filled end of the spectrum _ obsessed with keeping order and the Law. The young woman is a little simple, but very loving and open in her dealings with others. She has the task of cleaning the church, and likes to sit in the building on her own talking directly to God. She seems very young, and is certainly very innocent _ and yet the only sign of joy that we see in the village.

Into this cold world come the hedonistic workers from an off-shore oil field. One of them takes an interest in the girl, they fall in love and marry. But their joy is short lived, he has a serious accident on the rig. It looks as if he will not walk again, and may die. The film begins to take a mystical turn _ the injured oil-worker urges his wife to have sex with other men and tell him about her activities. He claims this is necessary for his recovery. The young, reluctant, innocent begins to follow his instructions _ every time she finds a new partner he seems to improve.

In the small village the young wife is quickly ostracised as being a woman of ill-repute. She is banned from the church, village children throw rocks at her, even her family refuses to speak to her or allow her into the house. There is much to-ing and fro-ing as the girl tries to work out what to do _ which of the evils before her is the lesser. In the end she becomes a prostitute working on the ships anchored off the shore _ on one of these she eventually meets her violent end. She gives her life _ at the same moment the injured oil worker, gets to his feet: miraculously healed.

As you watch the film you cannot but feel deep anger at what the oil worker is asking of his wife. She is being cut off from everything _ and more importantly _ she needs to compromise something deep within her in order to please her husband. As she is dragged lower and lower your heart cries out. How can he ask this? Where is the church in all this? Why does she (the good) need to suffer like this so that the husband (increasingly, the bad) can recover? In most films, when the "hero" is healed at the end we feel elated and happy _ in "Breaking the Waves" you feel emptiness and anger. Seeing him walk again seems so injust! We would have happily sacrificed the self-centred, boorish, oil worker for the innocent, joy-filled woman! She lifted our hearts, he weighs them down by reminding us of our baser selves.

The anger burns, "it's NOT fair!" _ but then I stop, for who am I? When I look at the two lives _ the innocence, the giving, the joy verses the cynicism and self-absorption _ I know which side I belong on. I may not be a cripple in a bed, but my life is crippled in other, often more fundamental ways. I know the games I play to try and have the world revolve around my needs; I know what other's might need or have that I am willing to sacrifice for my own satisfaction.

And in front of this contrast I see the cross. In a way that "Jesus of Nazareth" and countless other passion films (with their neat, sweet answers for everything) have never done, "Breaking the Waves' makes me look long and hard at the price that was paid for me. At the fact, that at heart, my redemption "is not fair". It makes Philippians 2 come alive in a very personal way _ He who was/is God; He who is the source of all perfection, joy, meaning _ came and gave His life so that I, the tired, deserving-of-death, cynical sinner might live. "For a good man, one might give His life BUT God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." The young wife is certainly no Jesus, but then neither is the church, her parents, her husband or anyone else in that village. They are all, like me, sinners in need of grace. But in her life, this grace is given some form, is made real in an appropriately disturbing way.

Jude and Martin (JaM) de Graaf
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