Breaking the waves

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Movie
German title Breaking the waves
Original title Breaking the waves
Country of production Denmark , Sweden , France , Netherlands , Norway , Iceland , Great Britain
original language English
Publishing year 1996
length 152 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Lars from Trier
script Lars von Trier
Peter Asmussen
production Peter Aalbæk Jensen
camera Robby Muller
cut Different refn
occupation
chronology

Successor  →
Idiots

Breaking the Waves is an award-winning film by the Danish director Lars von Trier from 1996 .

action

The film is set in a deeply religious Calvinist community on the coast of Scotland in the 1970s .

The young Bess McNeill, who seems mentally retarded, marries against the traditions of the village Jan Nyman, who comes from outside the community. After just a few weeks, Jan has to go back to his oil rig to work. For Bess, this temporary separation is a particular psychological burden; she finally prays to God that Jan will come back as soon as possible.

However, there is a serious accident on the oil rig. When Jan tries to save a colleague, he becomes a victim himself and barely gets away with his life. Due to a severe head injury, he is initially paralyzed from the neck down . The treating physicians do not assume that his condition can be significantly improved. Bess believes that she is to blame for the accident because she asked God for Jan to return soon.

Jan wants Bess to find a lover so that she can lead a sexually fulfilling life that he believes he can no longer offer her after his accident. In her irrepressible love for Jan, this is initially unthinkable for Bess. That is why Jan uses a trick with the intention of doing Bess good: In order to be able to go on living, he needs the idea of ​​physical love. In order to make Bess' stories as real as possible, she should sleep with other men. The drugs Jan has to take as a result of his operations make him hallucinate and make new demands on Bess. The naive Bess believes Jan and after great self-conquest and believing that she can actually keep Jan alive, she gradually turns into a village prostitute .

In a ship anchored off the coast, Bess is critically injured by her suitors. She is then taken to a hospital, where Dr. Richardson tried in vain for her life.

Bess' grandfather can get permission for a church burial in the council of elders. The pastor still curses her during the burial at the grave. While her sister-in-law Dodo then gives her opinion to the men present, she notices that sand is trickling out of the coffin. Jan, who can walk on crutches again, has meanwhile persuaded two of his work colleagues to steal Bess's body secretly and to bring it to a ship for a burial at sea. Now, in the middle of the sea, heavenly church bells are ringing, which had to be avoided during the wedding because the village church has no bells.

Characters

Bess McNeill
The protagonist of the film is a deeply religious, naive young girl who lives in an isolated Orthodox community in Scotland. There, the council of elders can judge the villagers at will, and women play a subordinate role. Because of her sentimentality and frequent emotional outbursts, Bess is perceived by the villagers as stupid and mentally disturbed. Except for her sister-in-law Dodo, Bess has no interlocutors, even her mother is very distant from her, which is why she often withdraws to church to speak to God.
Jan Nyman
Bess' husband is the opposite of Bess in some ways. The worker on an oil rig is of Scandinavian origin and cannot make friends with the religious principles of the community, which is very skeptical of people from outside.

trilogy

Breaking the Waves marks the beginning of the Golden Heart trilogy by director Lars von Trier. For von Trier, it was the second of three trilogies that have achieved international success, albeit outside the mainstream .

The two follow-up films of the Golden Heart trilogy are the dogma film Idioten (1998) and the internationally award-winning film Dancer in the Dark (2000). For this trilogy, von Trier was inspired by a children's book. The protagonists are all reminiscent of the naive girl in the fairy tale Goldherz , who suffers many losses and setbacks, but does not lose her happiness and helpfulness and in the end only has her golden heart.

actor

After Helena Bonham Carter , who was first choice for the role as Bess, was canceled, Lars von Trier hired the hitherto completely unknown Emily Watson . Watson stood in front of a camera for the first time at the age of 29. Von Trier, who is known for eliciting top performances from his actresses, helped her to receive rave reviews, several important film awards and an Oscar nomination on her debut .

Alongside Emily Watson, Katrin Cartlidge in the role of Bess' sister-in-law and Stellan Skarsgård , who frequently appears in Lars von Trier's films, play Jan.

Reviews

"[...] rousing pure emotional cinema [...] outstanding actors [s]"

- Lexicon of international film

"The staging has the force and coherence of a bizarre melodrama."

- Frankfurter Rundschau

"Magnificent filmed in the Scottish mountains and sea, with an actress who can hardly be imagined more ecstatic, screaming in her love lawn."

- Stuttgart newspaper

Awards

Academy Awards (Oscar) 1997

Nomination for Best Actress (Emily Watson)

European Film Award (Felix) 1996

Best Actress (Emily Watson)
Best European Film
European FIPRESCI Prize

International Cannes Film Festival 1996

Grand Jury Prize

French Academy of Cinema (César) 1996

Best foreign film

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 1996

New Generation Award (Emily Watson)

National Board of Review Award 1996

Best movie

National Society of Film Critics Award 1996

Best Actress (Emily Watson)
Best Director (Lars von Trier)
Best Cinematography (Robby Muller)
Best movie

theatre

Based on the film, Jan Jochymski directed Breaking the Waves at the Magdeburg Theater . The play premiered on May 16, 2008. The German-language stage premiere saw the dramatized film in October 2007 at the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin (director: Christian Lollike).

Opera

The film was adapted as an opera by the composer Missy Mazzoli and the librettist Royce Vavrek . It was performed at the Perelman Theater in Philadelphia in September and October 2016 .

literature

  • Andreas Jacket: Christian Passion, Miracle, Gift or Exchange: Breaking the Waves (1996). In: Crisis Reception or whatever you always wanted to know about Lars von Trier, but haven't dared to ask Jacques Derrida so far. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2014, pp. 159–173. ISBN 978-3826055379
  • Eberhard Ostermann: The religion of love in Breaking the Waves . In: EO: The Movie Count. Eight exemplary analyzes. Munich (Fink) 2007. pp. 45-60. ISBN 978-3-7705-4562-9 .
  • Georg Tiefenbach: Drama and direction: Lars von Triers Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2010. 251 pages. ISBN 978-3-8260-4096-2 .

swell

  1. ^ Breaking the Waves. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 25, 2016 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ theater magdeburg (accessed on May 24, 2008)
  3. ↑ https://www.operaphila.org/whats-on/on-stage-2016-2017/breaking-the-waves/ accessed on April 2, 2017

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