Breaking the Waves [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray/DVD]

Director: Lars von Trier Lars von Trier

Overview

This moving Danish drama provides a dramatic look into an unsettling marriage between a North Sea oil rigger and the mentally unstable, deeply religious small town girl who would do anything to make him happy. Bess (Emily Watson in an Oscar-nominated performance) has spent her life in a severe little town ruled by the fear of God. It is the kind of town where no church bells are allowed to peal out, a place where the fear of going to Hell keeps sinners at bay. The story is divided into seven chapters and begins as virginal Bess, who frequently holds odd conversations with God, prepares to marry the lusty, adventurous Jan (Stellan Skarsgård) . Although their first days of marriage are happy, Jan must work long hours and is often at sea on the rigs. Bess quietly prays for him to return. She gets her wish when he is badly injured and returns home a quadriplegic, at which point he makes an unusual request that sets in motion the rest of the film's story. Breaking the Waves is one of the most distinctive European movies of the 1990s, marking director Lars von Trier's movement toward his influential "Dogma 95" school of filmmaking, which emphasizes realistic situations of contemporary life, filmed without background music, with surprising shifts of angles and film styles, and with a hand-held, restlessly moving camera. Its daring originality, vertiginous camera movements, and unsettling story make Breaking the Waves a highly significant advance in filmmaking yet also not a film that all viewers will enjoy.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/29/2021
UPC:	0715515261319
Original Release:	1996
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	2:39:00
Sales rank:	11,783

Special Features

New 4k digital restoration, supervised by Director Lars von Trier, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack ; Selected-scene Audio Commentary featuring von Trier, Editor Anders Refn, and location scout Anthony Dod Mantle; New interview with filmmaker and critic Stig Bjorkman; New interviews with actor Emily Watson and Stellan Skarsgaard; Interview from 2004 with actor Adrian Rawlins; Excerpts from Watson's audition tape, with Commentary by von Trier; Deleted and extended scenes, with Commentary by von Trier; Deleted Scene featuring the late actor Katrin Cartlidge; Cannes Film Festival promotional clip; Trailer; Plus: An essay by critic David Sterritt and an excerpt from the 1999 book Trier on von Trier

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Emily Watson	Bess McNeill
Stellan Skarsgard	Jan
Katrin Cartlidge	Dodo McNeill
Jean-Marc Barr	Terry
Adrian Rawlins	Dr. Richardson
Sandra Voe	Mother
Udo Kier	The Man on the Trawler
Mikkel Gaup	Pits
Roef Ragas	Pim
Phil McCall	Grandfather
Jonathan Hackett	The Minister
Robert Robertson	Chairman
Desmond Reilly	An Elder
Sarah Grudgeon	Sybilla
Finlay Welsh	Coroner
David Gallacher	Glasgow Doctor
Ray Jeffries	Man on Bus
Owen Kavanagh	Man at Lighthouse
Bob Dogherty	Man on Boat
David Bateson	Young Sailor
Callum Cuthbertson	Radio Operator
Gavin Mitchell	Police Officer 1
Brian Smith	Police Officer 2
Iain Agnew	Praying Man 1
Charles Kearney	Praying Man 2
Steven Leach	Praying Man 3
Dorte Romer	Nurse
John Wark	Boy 2
Ronnie McKellaig	Precentor
Anthony O'Donnell	Boy
Peter Bensted	Ugly Man
Sarah Gudgeon	Sybilla
Simon Towler Jorfald	Boy in Film
Joachim Holbek	Composer

Technical Credits

Lars von Trier

Lars von Trier	Director,Screenwriter
Lars Andersen	Special Effects
Terry Forrestal	Stunts
Morten Jacobsen	Special Effects
Peter Aalbaek Jensen	Producer
Lars Jonsson	Executive Producer
Joyce Nettles	Casting
Vibeke Windelove	Producer
Vibeke Windeløv	Producer
Per Streit	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Set in a remote Scottish village by the North Sea, Breaking the Waves is a turbulent but stunning film, and it proved to be Danish director Lars von Trier's breakthrough in America. At its core is Bess (Emily Watson), a virginal naif who belongs to an orthodox Calvinist sect. She meets, falls in love with, and soon marries Jan (Stellan Skarsgard), a gentle worker from a nearby oil rig. Shortly after their wedding, Jan is crippled in an accident on the rig, and Bess takes a series of lovers, believing that, somehow, her simple carnality will incite God to "cure" Jan. In her screen debut, Watson is indelible as the beautiful but feral Bess (she was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar); and von Trier pulls no punches, holding the camera tightly on Bess throughout all of her self-abusive chastising and saintly whoring. The film ultimately emerges as a tortured, but genuine, theological puzzle: Can one act as God's agent of mercy in this world? The film may not have an answer, but the way it poses the question is impossible to forget.

Barnes & Noble - Pete Segall

There was never any doubt that Lars von Trier could create an atmosphere in his films. The Element of Crime, Zentropa, and The Kingdom all proved that few filmmakers could fashion a visually distinctive world as well as von Trier; but with Breaking the Waves, he vaulted to the forefront of the serious filmmakers of the 1990s. It's a highly original, highly challenging story about love and faith featuring two remarkably difficult yet successful performances from the stars, Emily Watson (nominated for an Oscar in her screen debut ) and Stellan Skarsgård. Von Trier brings his unique visual style, here dominated by vertiginous hand-held camera movements that reportedly made some viewers physically ill, and makes it part of a complementary moral and spiritual complexity. The stylized documentary feel of von Trier's Dogma 95 film movement (though much praise for the grainy monochrome must go to noted German cinematographer Robby Müller) serves both what we are seeing and how closely we are drawn to the plight of the characters. So much is tackled here, with such a commingling of romantic vision and postmodern technique, that it seems almost impossible to relate this visionary yet perversely old-fashioned movie to other movies of its time. It has the sweep and eloquence of a grand opera, and the emotional payoff to go with it.

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