Lars von Trier’s international breakthrough mixes – maybe even equates – religion and sex, yet the movie is far less exploitative than it sounds. When a mentally unstable young woman (a vulnerable yet brave Emily Watson) breaks away from her rigid Christian community to marry a strapping oil rigger (Stellan Skarsgard), she finds a life of liberating and matrimonially sanctioned sex. Then a cruel joke: Her husband is paralyzed in a work accident. When he asks her to sleep with other men and share the details in order to keep him alive, is her self-degradation a tragedy, a nobel sacrifice, a middle finger to God or the ultimate act of faith? It’s often all at once in von Trier’s provocative theology. The result is a supremely religious film, so that even the occasional chapter titles – gorgeous landscape shots by cinematographer Robby Mueller set to 1970s rock standards – feel like looking down on earth through the eyes of God.
