Great Movie Endings

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mutagen said:

Anyway, speaking of von Trier, the ending of Breaking the Waves was like this for me too -- what he was implying with the final shot in that movie just socked me in the gut.

It's been years since I've seen Breaking the Waves, what was the final shot again?

[Mutagen]

It was Jan walking out on crutches and hearing the bells. Then you see the bells ringing in the sky.

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Thanks. I wish I remembered enough of the rest of the movie to figure out what that meant.

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roisin54 said:

Thanks. I wish I remembered enough of the rest of the movie to figure out what that meant.

I think the idea was that Bess, strange and flawed as she was, was a kind of saint on earth and that the angels were rejoicing to have her with them. If someone had described that ending to me without my having seen the movie I would have thought it was absolutely ridiculous. But seeing what went on before, well, the over-the-top ending worked just fine. I also loved that the director had the guts to have actual, real bells pealing in the sky, rather than, say, having it happen in Jan's head or during a dream of his, or something.

I just remembered something -- At some point during the movie Bess mourns that the puritanical church elders didn't allow the church to have bells ringing on Sundays (because it was frivolous, or some such thing). So I guess the bells ringing in the sky was also a sort of present to her.

[hobocamp]

sunnyhorse said:

Holy shit, I just looked up the spoilers for Dogville and nearly fell out of my chair. How on earth could a director make such intense stuff boring?

Trust me, he's got a gift of creating boredom. My boyfriend fell asleep about 30 minutes in and "lalala-ed" all the way through my excited explaination of the plot later. But if the film grabs you, it's pretty intense.