Bess a young girl falls in love with an oil-rig worker called Jan. In a short space of time they marry and have a brief physical relationship before Jan returns to his rig. When an accident paralyses Jan he encourages Bess to take a lover...
A friend once said to me that after seeing Breaking the Waves "I realised for the first time that films could be more than entertainment". This film is not entertaining in so much as it is deeply painful. It is about a woman with learning difficulties living in a remote Scottish Presbyterian community. She marries a Scandinavian man who works on the oil rigs in the North Sea. They are in love and she seems to be happy. He has to go back to the rig and is paralyzed by an accident. Bedridden he tells her that she can help him recover by taking lovers and telling him about it.
The central performance, of Emily Watson, is powerful. Her suffering heartbreaking. And the film overall disturbing. It is, however, genuinely capable of evoking very real and very intense emotions in the viewer asking them unsettling questions. As corny as it might sound, this is a film you experience rather than watch.
I think everyone should watch this film and get in touch with their humanity. If you want to hear what the director has to say about the film and why he made it this DVD also features a commentary track with him.
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