Breaking the Waves

Screening on Film

Directed by Lars von Trier.
With Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgård, Katrin Cartlidge.
Denmark/Sweden/France/Netherlands/Norway, 1996, 35mm, color, 159 min.

In a remote northern Scottish village in the early 1970s, Bess (Watson), a young and trusting girl who is “not quite right in the head,” meets resistance from her close-knit community for her decision to marry a North-Sea oil-rig worker. A heart-wrenching study of faith, innocence, cruelty, and the crushing mores of religion, Breaking the Waves received the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and launched the career of Emily Watson, who delivers an extraordinary debut performance.