This is one of Lars von Trier’s best known films so it was always necessary to watch it at some point. It’s also one of his most accessible works as the director takes great pains to ensure that the audience understands exactly what is going on and what he means to say. I don’t much care for the psychosexual elements but it wouldn’t a von Trier film without them and it probably wouldn’t have as much shock value. This portrayal of a harsh version of Christianity doesn’t do the religion any favors but I think it’s more honest than the sanitized version we usually get and that’s a credit to this film.

Bess McNeil, a woman from a very religious community in the Scottish Highlands, marries Jan Nyman, a Danish man who works on the oil rigs in the North Sea. Her community disapproves as Jan is an outsider and doesn’t go to church while Bess has mental illness issues and was hospitalized for them after the death of her brother several years ago. Bess goes ahead with the wedding anyway and even asks Jan to take her virginity in the bathroom. She seems happy and is very much in love with Jan. She thanks God in her prayers and believes that God responds to her personally in her own voice. But then Jan needs to return to work on the oil rig after the honeymoon period and she becomes depressed. She prays to God to bring him back and God seemingly warns her of the consequences. Somewhat predictably, Jan is hit on the head in an accident on the rig and becomes paralyzed. The doctor tries to convince Bess that Jan may be better off dead under such conditions but Bess is insistent that he live. Jan tries to convince Bess to move on with her life and even take other lovers.

It isn’t difficult to figure out Bess’ simple character and her child-like naivety. Instead the audience is meant to wonder about how much of her interactions with God are simply a result of her delusions. I like that Dodo, her sister-in-law, directly confronts her to explain that her prayers have nothing to do with Jan’s accident or his recovery or lack thereof. But as I noted, von Trier really doesn’t mean for there to be any ambiguity at all. With her simple mind and purity of heart, Bess really is closer to and more beloved by God. The film has Bess engage in sexual activities of escalating intensity with random strangers because that is what she believes Jan asks of her. It could really be any other form of personal sacrifice but of course it is psychosexual because this film was made by von Trier. The fact that the sacrifice is sexual also makes it more shocking when it turns out that this really is part of God’s plan and that Bess’ acquiescence makes her holy in the eyes of God.

It’s an effective film and probably one of my favorites by this director of the ones I’ve seen so far because it’s so starkly presented in metaphorical black and white terms. The deliberately lo-fi look of the production, with it being shot on a handheld camera and the visual quality further degraded by running the footage through video cassette and back again, gives this a raw, more visceral feeling as if we’re seeing something as it really happens. My one major complaint is the haziness around Jan’s character. On one level, there are hints that he understands Bess more than anyone else, that she is a person who goes for what she wants without any restraints. Yet even if he started out encouraging Bess to have a relationship with other men so that she wouldn’t have to live out her life being tied to him, surely he would be able to recognize that she has gone too far and what she is doing is harmful to her. It could be argued that his injuries have impaired his own judgment at that point but I find it unsatisfying that Bess’ harmful actions are actually caused by a misunderstanding. It would have been bolder if God had actually spoken to her about the need for a personal sacrifice.

Lars von Trier’s films always mean to shock, repulse and stir controversy. He certainly succeeds at these aims here and I’m certainly gleeful about his message that a person like Bess is closer to God than the sanctimonious men of her church. Still, I don’t think it’s a particularly clever or insightful film, just an exceptionally bold one, and so von Trier won’t ever be one of my favorite directors.