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Breaking the Waves
Breaking the Waves film poster
Directed by	Lars von Trier
Produced by	Peter Aalbæk Jensen Vibeke Windeløv
Written by	Lars von Trier Peter Asmussen
Starring	Emily Watson Stellan Skarsgård
Distributed by	October Films (USA)
Release date(s)	May 1996 (premiere in Cannes Film Festival)
Running time	159 min. 153 min. (director's cut)
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Breaking the Waves is a 1996 film, set in the Scottish Highlands in the 1970s, which tells the story of Bess McNeill, who marries oil rig worker Jan, despite the apprehensions of her community and Calvinist church. She is somewhat simple, and has difficulty living without him when he is away on the oil platform. She prays for his return, and when he returns paralysed after an industrial accident, she believes it is her fault. No longer able to make love, Jan urges her to find and have sex with other men, and then tell him the details. She slowly begins to believe that what she is doing is the wish of God.

The movie was written by Lars von Trier, Peter Asmussen and David Pirie (uncredited), and was directed by von Trier. It stars Emily Watson as Bess, in her first film role, Stellan Skarsgård as Jan, and Katrin Cartlidge as Bess' sister-in-law Dodo.

The film shows influences of the Dogme 95 movement, of which von Trier is a founding member. Though often referred as a Dogme 95 film, it violates several of the Dogme 95 rules, i.e. Dogme 95 emphasizes the use of real locations; but whilst most of the locations in Breaking the Waves are deceptively realistic, they were in fact constructed in a studio. Additionally the film is set in the past, against the Dogme "now" rule and music is used to introduce each chapter.

Breaking the Waves won the "grand prize" at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, and three awards at the 1996 European Film Awards including: Film of the Year, International Film Journalists Award, and European Actress of the Year (Watson). Emily Watson was nominated for the 1996 Academy Award for Best Actress, and the 1997 British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for best actress.

Breaking the Waves is the first film in von Trier's Golden Heart Trilogy which includes The Idiots (1998) and Dancer in the Dark (2000). It was also rumoured to have been written specially for Madonna, but she was unable to do it due to her commitment to Evita.^{[citation needed]}

• Locations:
  • Isle of Skye: The graveyard (built for the film)
  • Lochailort: The church
  • Mallaig: Harbour
  • Morar: Beach
• Studio:
  • Det Danske Filmstudie, Lyngby, Denmark

• Lars Von Trier, Breaking the Waves, 1996, ISBN 0-571-19115-0.
• Best Films of 1996: Foreign Film Awards

• Breaking the Waves at All Movie Guide
• Breaking the Waves at the Internet Movie Database
• Breaking the Waves at Metacritic
• Roger Ebert on Breaking the Waves
• Breaking the Waves at Rotten Tomatoes
• Filming locations at scotlandthemovie.com
• Breaking the Waves at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list