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Breaking the Waves Movie Write Up

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Soren Kierkegaard’s philosophy on the three movements to faith establishes itself as a recurring and major theme throughout the movie, “Breaking the Waves”. Without the knowledge of Kierkegaard’s philosophy, the average viewer would most likely miss the significance and understanding of what truly goes on. The underlying philosophy shines light on particular instances, which generates a better understanding of each character’s individual decision-making. In order to understand the movie in its entirety, one must first attempt to understand Kierkegaard’s three movements to faith. The first movement to faith is a commitment or appropriation to a singular wish. In this stage, a person loves someone to the point where they always want to be around that one person no matter what the circumstances are. The person wishes and prays in every case that no matter what happens, they can still be physically and finitely connected to that person in each other’s lifetime. In the case of the movie, the audience is shown the main character named Bess, whose singular wish to God is to fall mutually in love with a man. After she marries this man, she wants nothing else but to always be in direct contact with her husband, Jan. The audience is shown this with a scene in the movie that depicts Bess screaming and running up to Jan just before he is about to board the helicopter to return back to work. She never wanted to let him go and she explains this to God in multiple conversations. She complains over and over again that she loves Jan and she wants to be with him all of the time. She stubbornly ignores the suggestions from her sister and God to endure Jan at times when he is away. This is in direct correlation to Kierkegaard’s philosophy on the first stage. The love that Bess presents in the film goes above and beyond any other type of love. The audience sees later that the problem arises when she cannot be with him after his serious injury on the oilrig. Kierkegaard’s second stage persists throughout the bulk of the movie and becomes the most interesting part when it comes to each character’s individual decision-making. The second stage comes in almost direct relation to the final stage, which is Faith. The philosophy on the second stage consists of the idea of infinite resignation. If the person truly does love this person they will give their singular wish up in the finite world in order to gain complete inwardness in the infinite. As Kierkegaard puts it, “one does not annul his resignation, he preserves his love just as young as it was in the first moment” (Oaklander, 57). Bess exemplifies this greatly throughout the movie. When Jan becomes injured and ill, she struggles to give him up until God claims “Your love for Jan has been put to the test.” Therefore, she must truly show God that she loves Jan and is willing to release him in order to have him. A paradox stems from this idea as well. Bess must demonstrate her love and release of Jan by having sexual relationships with other men. This seems bizarre to the average viewer because most people would consider this insane. It was considered okay because God told her to do it so she could show that she truly did love Jan and want to resign him. Bess puts her faith in this because she has succumbed to the absolute faith in God. Therefore as soon as Bess realizes she has to resign Jan in the finite world, she gains complete faith in God that she will be together again with him in complete inwardness. She believes her faith in God would help satisfy her love for Jan. The way Bess passes her test from God is by going back to the dangerous ship to show she had completely resigned in Jan but also gained complete faith in God that the right things were going to happen. The scene of her going back to the ship and looking up and asking God if he was still there with her clarified that she had complete faith in him. She was willing to give up her life in order to save the life of the person she loved the most. This answered God’s question in the beginning of the movie when he asked her if she cared for anyone’s life other than hers. Ultimately, Kierkegaard’s three movements to faith proved to be a major factor in the movie “Breaking the Waves”. The movements towards faith illustrated the insane decisions that some of the characters were wiling to make. Without the knowledge of Kierkegaard, most people would not comprehend the movie as well as they should. Therefore, the average viewer would not get the depth of the movie because of their lack of knowledge. Understanding the philosophy of Kierkegaard proved to be a vital instrument in understanding “Breaking the Waves”.

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