:
Emily Watson,
Emily Watson,
Stellan Skarsgård,
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:
Lars von Trier,
Lars von Trier
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: 
: Hallmark
: Drama, Foreign, Netherlands, Scandinavia, Erotica
: 152 min.
: English
: English
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With Breaking The Waves, director Lars von Trier fashions an often disturbing tale of the singular power of love. Bess (the Oscar-nominated Emily Watson) is a naïve, borderline simple young woman who lives in a Scottish coastal town ruled by the religious doctrine of its council of elders. Recovering from a mental breakdown caused by the death of her brother, Bess marries a rough yet compassionate and attentive oil rig worker named Jan (Stellan Skarsgård). For a brief time, the couple enjoys peaceful wedded bliss, with the worldly Jan introducing Bess to the mysteries of sex. Jan must soon return to his job on the rig, however, where he is paralyzed from the neck down in a freak accident. Bess' emotional trauma over Jan's injury turns into obsession as she prays to God for his recovery and offers to do anything to have her husband back whole. Jan, constantly medicated and profoundly depressed, asks Bess to have sex with other men and tell him about it, thinking this will allow her to return to a normal life. Bess, on the other hand, sees it as an expression of her devotion to Jan that even God won't be able to ignore. Bess' resultant downward spiral leads to a finale of both tragedy and spirituality. Breaking the Waves is widely regarded as one of the most distinctive European movies of the 1990s, marking von Trier's movement toward his influential Dogma 95 school of filmmaking, which emphasizes realistic situations of contemporary life, filmed without background music and with a hand-held, restlessly moving camera. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
We have limited quantities of this out of print title, please be patient when it is checked out.
You might also enjoy:
Dancer in the Dark
The last chapter in Von Trier's "Golden Heart" trilogy; features Bjork in a similarly punishing role
Ordet
Another Danish director's important film about the personal interpretation of faith
The Piano
And if you want a woman director's take on psychosexual relationships and sexual bargaining...
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