10 Classic Movies That Taught Us Terrible Lessons

10. Breaking the Waves

(Lesson: Don't Listen To The Voices In Your Head ... Or Your Spouse) As it happens, Lars Von Trier adapted a Greek tragedy called Medea for the screen early on in his career. It's about the dangers of being a woman and expressing your will. Whereas Medea is optional viewing from the Lars Von Trier archives, Breaking the Waves is not. I start with this movie because when it comes to cinematic lessons for living, Breaking the Waves is a "do not pass go" movie if ever there was one. Keep reading to find out why you need to watch it today. We all hear an inner voice from time to time. It's the voice that gives suggestions, sometimes positive, sometimes negative. Either way, it's always there. But when you're married to a fantastic person, whose back is broken and can't have sex with you anymore, don't go run off screwing strangers so your spouse can get his or her jollies from the stories you'll have to tell. Not even if the voice of God backs up your spouse's request. The tragedy of Breaking the Waves is not so much that its heroine, Bess McNeill, is clearly mentally ill, but that her family is too lost in religious tradition and her husband in his own needs to get Bess the help she badly needs. Breaking the Waves is as much about social inattention to the problem of mental illness as it is about a husband's perverse scheme to keep meaning in his life by pimping out his wife. So don't do either of these things. When people are talking crazy, help them out. If you're paralyzed and can't have sex, get inventive.
 
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Anthony Metivier is the author of Disaster Genre Secrets for Screenwriters and How to Learn and Memorize German Vocabulary.