Breaking the Waves

Breaking the Waves

Director: Lars von Trier
Country: Denmark

1996 | 159 min. | English
Subtitles: German
FSK 12

Cast_ Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgård, Katrin Cartlidge, Jean-Marc Barr, Adrian Rawlins Screenplay_ Lars von Trier Camera_ Robby Müller Producer_ Vibeke Windelov, Peter Aalbaek Jensen Rights_ Plaion Pictures

Lars von Trier’s screen-shattering masterpiece about a young woman’s religious fanaticism.

While her husband Jan (Stellan Skarsgård) works on an oil rig and is rarely at home, Bess devotes herself entirely to her fanatical faith. When Jan returns completely paralyzed from an accident, intense “conversations” with God lead her to believe that she will find salvation in sex with strangers.

This nerve-wracking, emotionally stirring drama marked Lars von Trier’s definitive breakthrough and made a star of its lead Emily Watson. The female self-sacrifice and the extreme escalation of a melodramatic and misguided path turned ›Breaking the Waves‹ into one of the most talked-about films of the 1990s.

Director

Lars von Trier, born in 1956, is a Danish director and author. He has created a provocative, controversial and award-winning body of work. In addition to ›Breaking the Waves‹, his best-known films include ›Europa‹ (1991), ›The Idiots‹ (1998), ›Dancer in the Dark‹ (2000), ›Dogville‹ (2003), and ›Melancholia‹ (2011).

Screenings