For your information: here are excerpts from an interview by Christian Braad Thomsen, Danish film director and author, published with the production/promotion notes of BREAKING THE WAVES. In this interview Lars von Trier says among other things: "My family doesn't like BREAKING THE WAVES very much; my brother phoned m= e yesterday to say that he found it even more repellent the second time he saw it. But I think the film is precisely a reaction to the taste that prevailed in my childhood, where sentimentality was completely banned. Th= e values I promote in BREAKING THE WAVES are in total opposition to those I acquired in childhood. [ One sentence abolished] --my family were atheists of almost religious conviction, so everything the film contains by way of religiosity and cor= ny effects, I have always learned to avoid. There was no reason to expose things as shamelessly as I do int he film, where the lines are the cornie= st you'll get, every time..." Thomsen: I wouldn't say so. von Trier: "Oh, but they are. The leading character says on her deathbed, "Mother I am sorry that I could not be good". Now, that is atrocious. And she says "Sorry" just before she dies. I mean, for goodness' sake, they couldn't be worse!" Thomsen: But what has steered you towards the more direct mode of emotional expression you are now working in? von Trier: "It comes from Catholicism. I was christened a few years ago a= t the same time as my daughter - not that it has made me a good Catholic, y= ou definitely can't call me that, and what's more I'm recently divorced. But in a way, religion and the miracle have been part of my films from the ve= ry beginning. They all end up in some kind of redemption or from God's point of view.--" -- Thomsen: Do you think you turned Catholic as a reaction to your childhood= ? von Trier: "Well, yes, I suppose so. Religion was totally forbidden, and = it has always interested me." -- Thomsen: But one may be na=EFve without being religious, and religious without being na=EFve. von Trier: "Oh, absolutely. but to me, religion is a quest for the childhood I never had [talks about a fairy tale GOLDEN HEART which inspir= ed BREAKING THE WAVES]--On the other hand, the film was not only inspired by= a fairy tale for children, but also by Marquis de Sade's JUSTINE, which I h= ad been planning to film for years.-- In BREAKING THE WAVES I try to take a martyr seriously - and so of course my family reacts against the film. I set out to make a melodrama with a woman as the leading character, as Dreyer did. And it was to include a re= al miracle, one which would be believable" [in the context of the film, he adds later]. End of excerpts. -------- So what do you make of it? That l'enfant terrible of Danish cinema goes anal? Even if and because of parents told not to? Antti Selkokari film critic for a Finnish daily Aamulehti ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]