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Breaking the Waves is a 1996 film directed by Lars von Trier and starring Emily Watson. Set in the Scottish Highlands in the early 1970s, it tells the story of an unusual young woman, Bess McNeill, and of the love she has for Jan, her husband. The film is an international co-production led by Lars von Trier's Danish company Zentropa. It is the first film in Trier's 'Golden Heart Trilogy' which also includes The Idiots from 1998 and Dancer in the Dark from 2000.
[edit] PlotBreaking the Waves tells the story of Bess McNeill, who marries Norwegian oil rig worker Jan, despite the apprehensions of her community and Calvinist church. Bess is somewhat simple and childlike, and has difficulty living without Jan when he is away on the oil platform. She prays for his return, and when he returns paralyzed after an industrial accident, she believes it is her fault. No longer able to perform sexually, and mentally affected by the accident, Jan urges her to find and have sex with other men and then tell him the details. With each act of promiscuity she performs Jan's health improves. Bess slowly begins to believe that what she is doing is the will of God. She goes aboard a ship at anchor as a prostitute, but when the men try to have brutal sex with her she fights her way out. Learning that Jan has taken a turn for the worse Bess returns to the ship, is brutally gang raped and dies in hospital. Jan at this point miraculously makes a full recovery. The community treats her like a whore during her burial. Unbeknown to the community however Jan and his coworkers have replaced Bess body in the coffin with bags of sand, They take her actual body out to sea and inter her body in the ocean. Later, upon returning to work on the rig Jan and his coworkers hear the peal of church bells coming from the sky. [edit] Cast
[edit] StyleThe film is influenced by the realist Dogme 95 movement, of which von Trier was a founding member, and its grainy images and hand-held photography give it the superficial look of a Dogme film. However, the Dogme rules demand the use of real locations, whereas many of the locations in Breaking the Waves were constructed in a studio.[citation needed] In addition, the film is set in the past and contains dubbed music, as well as a brief scene featuring CGI, none of which is permitted by the Dogme rules. Von Trier's first true Dogme film was The Idiots. The extreme use of cinéma vérité has been the cause of a number of viewers of this movie in the theater to become nauseated or suffer migraines. [edit] ProductionHelena Bonham Carter was von Trier's first choice to play the role of Bess, but she dropped out just before shooting was to start, reportedly due to the large amount of nudity and sexuality required by the role.[2] Melanie Griffith was also considered. The exterior scenes were shot in Scotland: the graveyard was built for the film on Isle of Skye; the church is in Lochailort, the harbour in Mallaig, and the beach in Morar.[3] The interiors were shot at Det Danske Filmstudie, Lyngby, Denmark. [edit] AwardsBreaking the Waves won the Grand Prix at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival,[4] and three awards at the 1996 European Film Awards including: Film of the Year, International Film Journalists Award, and European Actress of the Year (Watson). Emily Watson was nominated for the 1996 Academy Award for Best Actress, the 1997 British Academy of Film and Television Arts award, the National Society of Film Critics prize, and the European Film Award for Best Actress. The movie was also named one of the ten best films of the decade by both Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese during a show where the famous film personalities listed their top movies of the 1990s. [edit] Box officeReleased on November 13, 1996, the film has grossed just over $4 million in the US.[5] [edit] References
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] External links
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