Breaking the Waves | 
| Director: Lars Von Trier
Actors: Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard, Katrin Cartlidge, Jean-marc Barr, Adrian Rawlins
Studio: Artisan Entertainment
Category: DVD
Buy Used: $33.88
New (6) Used (16) Collectible (3) from $33.88
Rating:  150 reviews
Sales Rank: 11485
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Letterboxed, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 152 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: 10048
ISBN: 6305899681
UPC: 707729100485
EAN: 9781574927825
ASIN: 6305899681
Theatrical Release Date: November 13, 1996
Release Date: July 25, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: 100% Satisfaction guaranteed! Item ships from CA. Please allow 4-14 business days for orders to arrive.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
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
Description
When Bess, a naive young woman, marries Jan, a handsome oil-rig worker, she experiences passion and physical pleasure that she never imagined. Their bliss is cut short when an accident on the rig leaves Jan paralyzed. Believing he will never make love to Bess again, he tells her to take other lovers, convincing her that this will help his recovery. Bess is sent spiraling into a world of dark emotions she cannot understand
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| Customer Reviews: Read 145 more reviews...
 Breaking the Waves is a Love Story Within a Love Story. November 5, 2008
G. Merritt (Boulder, CO)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Set in a remote, repressed, and deeply-religious community in the 1970s Scottish Highlands, Danish film director Lars von Trier's film, Breaking the Waves (1996), chronicles the unusual love story between Bess McNeill (Emily Watson) and her husband, Jan (Stellan Skarsgard). The film is the first in von Trier's "Golden Heart Trilogy," which also includes The Idiots (1998) and Dancer in the Dark (2000). Bess talks to God. In fact, she has two-way conversations with him. After Jan is paralyzed from the neck down in an oil-rigging accident, she believes that it is God's will that she engage in sex with other men so that she may then share all of the details with Jan. Her faith in God leads Bess to believe that this will cure her husband of his paralysis. She is further convinced that the more deviant she becomes in her sexual behaviour, the more likely it will be that God will heal Jan. She goes places where even the village prostitutes refuse to go.
The mesmerising film shows von Trier's realist Dogme 95 influences: hand-held photography, grainy images, and natural lighting, but it is not a true Dogme 95 film (it was not filmed on location). How good is Breaking the Waves? Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese both named it as one of the ten best films of the 1990s. Breaking the Waves won the Grand Prix at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, and Emily Watson's mesmerizing performance was nominated for the 1996 Academy Award for Best Actress. This rare, fascinating film explores emotional depths with honesty, and is highly recommended. Its raw emotional power will leave audiences divided. What more can we expect from a truly great film?
G. Merritt
What Would You Do For Love? October 24, 2008
Juz-b-yosef
Emily Watson plays an innocently naive, very religious, and perhaps slow-witted young newly-wed dealing with love for God, her Family, and her husband within her old-fashioned and intolerant Scottish community. The film is mostly shot in grainy black & white, but it has beautifully scenic color intermissions with snippets of phrases taken from various Beattles' songs that are relevant to the next section of the story as it unfolds. Also, more of the film is shot in color as the intensity of the situation rises. The ending is all at once tragic, poignant, hopeful, and metaphysical. A great film to watch alone on a quiet, rainy afternoon.
about the DVDfilm/movie breaking the waves....... June 10, 2008
Ang Poon Kah (Singapore)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The story is basically an oil rig worker get married to a woman he loves and they had good times together and then he has to part with his wife temporary and had to get back to oil rig to work but he finally get into accident on the job which led to be neckcuffed and bedridden with a hard chance of recovery. He later asked his wife to look for someone and have sex as to make her happy buy she went on sex with other man which the last one caused her to be serously hurt and landed in hospital where she later died. Her Husband was later seen recovering from the accident and had her body thropwn and buried in the sea where he works. Recommended to those whom are interested in this genre of film/movie. This woman in this film acting as Bess had some phycological problem where she had delusion about things and her husband, ian whom was suffering from accident in the movie.
Breaking the Waves
Review by:
Dr, MR Franc MBBS (PhD) GPS Ang Poon Kah
director 'lou Ye'- Ang Poon Kah for film summer palace.
A masterpiece from Lars von Trier... May 30, 2008
Adam (SC)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
One of the best films of 1996, this is a story of love that knows no boundaries, and of sacrifice. Emily Watson gives the performance of her career as Bess, a simple woman who has just married Jan, played by Stellan Skarsgard. Within the boundaries of their marriage, Bess discovers the gift of physical love that she had never known before. From this moment on, she cannot bear to be away from her husband and constantly cries when he is away. Bess is also a devout Christian, and is always praying to God, asking him questions and turning to him for comfort.
When Jan is the victim of a tragic oil rig accident that leaves him paralyzed, he is no longer able to make love to Bess. He then asks her to do something very sketchy: he asks her to go out and make love with perfect strangers, and then come to him with all of the details. His motivations for this seem sort of strange, and it is never quite clear why he asks her to do this. However, being the simpleton and the loving individual that she is, she fulfills what he asks her to do. In her mind, she believes that it is her duty as a wife, and so she becomes something of a prostitute. She believes that her actions will heal her husband. As a result of her promiscuous behavior, she is cast out of her church and abandoned by her family. The children throw rocks at her, and the townsfolk want nothing to do with her. All she has from this point on are God, her husband, and her overly protective best friend. Still, she presses on with her mission, which she believes is God's will for her life. It all leads to a tragic - yet extremely powerful - ending.
While I do not believe for one second that God would ask one of his children to sacrifice themselves in that fashion, that really is not the point of this film. Lars Von Trier has given us a strong message here. Bess puts her love and her life on the line, just as Christ did for all of humanity. See this film and try to look beyond the disturbing, graphic material to see the bigger picture. When I first read about this film - being a fan of Lars Von Trier's work - I was extremely reluctant to view it.
Now, I have to say, I am glad that I did.
Hang in there; this is a touching movie which can be hard to watch May 3, 2008
Gary E. Robbins (Flagstaff, AZ United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Hang in there! This is a touching movie that can be very hard to watch. For me, it was about following your own inner guidance, and being true to yourself 100%.
Don't start watching this movie unless you have enough time set aside to finish it. I found this movie to be touching and moving. And it was hard to watch for much of the movie. I suggest that you read very little about the movie before watching it, and just trust others who recommend it.
Also, this movie is not for children or teens.
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