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Breaking the Waves

Breaking the Waves

Lars von Trier


  • Country: Denmark/Sweden/France/Netherlands/Norway/Iceland
  • Year: 1996
  • Language: English
  •  
  • Runtime: 159 min.

Lars Von Trier's raw, controversial drama was the dry run for his famed "Dogma 95" movement, yoking the signifiers of naturalism (handheld cameras, location shooting) to an almost magic realist fable of faith and redemption.

Cinematheque

screening times

    • Sunday November 14
    • 7:15:00 PM
    • Tiff Bell LightBox 3

Note: indicates Premium Screening.

official description

Lars von Trier's raw, controversial drama was the dry run for his famed "Dogma 95" movement, yoking the signifiers of naturalism (handheld cameras, location shooting) to an almost magic realist fable of faith and redemption. In a mesmerizing, Academy Award®-nominated debut performance, Emily Watson plays Bess, a somewhat simple girl in a small Scottish coastal village—inclined to carry on conversations with God, who "speaks" through her in a bass voice—who marries Jan (Stellan Skarsgård), a husky Danish oilman. When the newlyweds' blissfully carnal coexistence is shattered when Jan is paralyzed in an accident, he makes a shocking request of Bess, who sets out to fulfill his wishes with single-minded, (literally) religious devotion. A martyr's tale for the modern age, Breaking the Waves announced Trier as one of the most visionary and controversial directors in contemporary cinema.

Thanks to Lizette Gram Mygind, Danish Film Institute.

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