ABSTRACT
Writing this chapter has led me to wonder (and not for the first time) whether I actually like Lars von Trier’s Breaking The Waves (1996). It has also led me to ponder what kind of reading of any film is final? How do we get to understanding a point of view or reading that can seem obvious to another, or even to oneself in retrospect, yet is quite tangential to our initial position on a movie? In this chapter, I shall tackle a number of themes: Lars von Trier’s own description of the film; Jungian film criticism; and the Jungian concept of individuation in the context of damaged and damaging masculinity. I end with a particular reading of the film as personality that comes from my clinical perspective as a Jungian analyst and couple therapist rather than as a film analyst.
