Stars: Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard, Katrin Cartlidge, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgaard

Director: Lars Von Trier

Summary: Bess, a young girl, falls in love with an oil rig worker called Jan. In a short space of time they marry and have a brief physical relationship before Jan returns to his rig. When an accident paralyses Jan he encourages Bess to take a lover.

Danish director Lars von Trier's BREAKING THE WAVES is a sweeping romantic fable that is photographed like a low-budget documentary, resulting in a strikingly original motion picture from one of contemporary cinema's most distinct visionaries. Bess McNeill (Emily Watson) is a shy young woman living in a small Scottish shore town dominated by a strict religious sect. When she meets Jan (Stellan Skarsgaard), an offshore rig worker, the two immediately fall in love. Jan embraces Bess's absolute innocence and, soon after, they are married. Their magical existence comes to a crashing halt when Jan is forced to return to sea for an extended period of time. In a series of intense dialogues with God, Bess begs for Jan's return back to shore immediately, and when Jan is paralyzed in a freak accident, her wish is granted. Convinced that her prayers caused Jan's tragedy, Bess devotes her life to redeeming herself however she can. Jan insists that she experience sexual relations with a series of strangers, relating to him her escapades. Obeying his wish, she begins to see that her actions are restoring Jan's health, sparking her into committing one reckless final sacrifice. Watson delivers one of the most stunningly naked screen debuts in screen history, filling BREAKING THE WAVES with an intensity that is tragic, yet somehow hopeful.

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Set in an unmercifully rugged, coastal village in Scotland in the 1970s, this extraordinary film by Lars von Trier stars British actress Emily Watson as a barely contained naive named Bess, who holds regular conversations with God and whose pure and intensely personal faith is hardly tolerated by the gruesome Calvinist elders of her church. Bess marries an oil-rig worker (Stellan Skarsgard) and comes to believe that erotic discovery is a part of God's grand plan. But after her spouse is hurt in an accident, she decides that divine instruction is leading her toward the life of a prostitute--with disastrous but somehow beautiful results. Von Trier (The Kingdom) has made a wonderful, entirely unexpected, and rigorous work of discovery in this film, with a formal visual design that recalls classic films by Carl Theodor Dreyer and Robert Bresson. Watson is a phenomenon, her wide-eyed wonder at the world as God's handiwork a breathtaking portrayal of conviction. --Tom Keogh

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Year:	1996
Release Date:	September 1, 2003
Runtime:	153 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	P 8903 D V D
Keywords:	Waves, Off, Breaking, General, Drama, Schedule
Genre:	Drama