Breaking the Waves (1996) on Netflix
Bess McNeill marries Jan Nyman, a Danish oil rig worker, in her strict Scottish Highland village. When an accident on the platform paralyzes him, he urges her to take another lover.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.8/1076,689 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
Bess McNeill lives in a small, conservative village in the Scottish Highlands, where she talks to God on her church visits and answers in her own voice. The congregation disapproves when she marries Jan Nyman, a Dane who works on an oil platform. While he is away, Bess misses him badly and asks God to bring him home at once. The next day a blowout on the rig leaves Jan severely injured, and he comes back to the mainland completely paralyzed. Bess takes the accident as a punishment for her prayer. Jan, unable to make love to her, tells her to find a lover instead, and she is shattered by the request.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Breaking the Waves (1996)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Helena Bonham Carter was Lars von Trier's first choice to play Bess but dropped out just before shooting, reportedly over the nudity and sexuality the role required. Other big-name actresses were approached and turned the subject matter down; von Trier cast Emily Watson, then a complete unknown, after her audition.
- Breaking the Waves was Lars von Trier's first film after he founded the Dogme 95 movement with Thomas Vinterberg, yet it breaks many of the movement's rules, using built sets, post-dubbed music and computer graphics.
- The graveyard in Breaking the Waves was built for the film on the Isle of Skye; von Trier chose Skye because it was popular with 19th century English romantic painters and writers.
- Breaking the Waves was shot with Panavision equipment, and its low-resolution look was achieved by transferring the film to video and then back to film again.
- David Bowie's "Life on Mars" plays over the epilogue in the released film, but it was replaced by Elton John's "Your Song" on early home video releases; the Criterion edition restores the Bowie song.
- Breaking the Waves was the first Lars von Trier film with a female protagonist: his earlier leads were men, typically disillusioned idealists undone by a deceitful femme fatale. He kept the motif in Dancer in the Dark, Dogville and Manderlay.
- Lars von Trier said it took him five years to write Breaking the Waves and secure its financing, and that he began to lose enthusiasm for it right after filming started.
