Breaking the Waves (1996)

Calificación de los usuarios:

7.7/10   

Director:

Lars von Trier

Escritores:

Lars von Trier (written by)
Peter Asmussen (co-written by)

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

13 noviembre 1996 (USA)

Género:

Drama | Romance

Frase comercial:

Love is a mighty power.

Plot:

Oilman Jan is paralyzed in an accident. His wife, who prayed for his return, feels guilty; even more, when Jan urges her to have sex with another.

Plot Keywords:

Love | Accident | Sex | Scotland | Oil Rig

Premios:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 40 wins & 13 nominations

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Left reeling, fascinated yet puzzled

Reparto

Emily Watson	...	Bess McNeill
Stellan Skarsgård	...	Jan Nyman
Katrin Cartlidge	...	Dodo McNeill
Jean-Marc Barr	...	Terry
Adrian Rawlins	...	Dr. Richardson
Jonathan Hackett	...	Priest
Sandra Voe	...	Mother
Udo Kier	...	Sadistic Sailor
Mikkel Gaup	...	Pits
Roef Ragas	...	Pim
Phil McCall	...	Grandfather
Robert Robertson	...	Chairman
Desmond Reilly	...	An Elder
Sarah Gudgeon	...	Sybilla
Finlay Welsh	...	Coroner (as Finley Welsh)

También conocida como:

Amor omnie (Denmark) (working title)
Breaking the Waves (France)
Contra viento y marea (Argentina) [es]
Rompiendo las olas (Spain) [es]

MPAA:

Rated R for strong graphic sexuality, nudity, language and some violence.

Duración:

159 min | USA:153 min (director's cut)

País:

Denmark | Sweden | France | Netherlands | Norway | Iceland

Idioma:

Inglés

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Relación de Aspecto:

2.35 : 1

Sonido:

Dolby Digital

Clasificación:

Iceland:16 | Singapore:R21 (re-rating) | New Zealand:R16 | Australia:R | Canada:18A | Chile:18 | Denmark:12 | Finland:K-14 | France:-12 | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:III | Hungary:16 | Italy:VM14 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/16 | Singapore:R(A) | South Korea:18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R | Argentina:16 | Israel:18

Locaciones de Filmación:

Copenhagen, Denmark

Compañía:

Argus Film Produktie

Trivialidades:

In modern film editing, the original film footage is transferred to video where it is edited to its final cut, then used as a guide for a negative cutter going back to the original film footage. In the case of this film, however, they just recorded the video edit back to 35mm, resulting in its unique, highly grainy look.

Citas:

Dodo McNeill: Not one of you has the right to consign Bess to hell!

Conexiones de Película:

Referenced in From Dogma to Dogville: Don't Try This at Home (2006)

Banda de Sonido:

I Did What I Did for Maria

Left reeling, fascinated yet puzzled

Although Lars von Trier's "Breaking the Waves" is undoubtedly one of the most impressive films of recent years, I have delayed commenting on it until now, as my feelings about it are far from clear. Certainly it has an arresting quality that held me in a vice-like grip for nearly three hours - no mean achievement as generally once over the two-hour threshold one is looking for the scissors. But, no, it has a mesmerising quality that reminds me of Dreyer's "Ordet" at times. Both are set in remote communities and deal with religious concepts which, even for a semi-believer, remain difficult to comprehend; in the case of Dreyer the miracle of a resurrection and here the hint at something similar in a final scene I will not reveal. Both films have a supposedly mentally unstable central character, a young man who talks as Christ in "Ordet" while Bess, the young woman in "Breaking the Waves" talks to God who answers her in her own voice's deepest register. Bess falls in lave with Jan, an oil-rig worker and the early scenes chart their wedding. When Jan has to return to the oil-rig the distraught Bess prays to God for his return, a prayer that is answered ironically when he returns paralysed from the neck down after an accident on the rig. How Bess lives with this situation is the subject of the second and third hours of the film. These have at times an almost unbearable intensity and at one point, where a group of children taunt Bess, we are in deepest "Mouchette" country. It is one of those very rare films where I feel the use of a hand-held camera to be completely justified as it gives extraordinarily emotional events a frenetic immediacy. However by punctuating the action with chapter headings set against long held landscape stills, moments of an almost trance-like repose are achieved between each onslaught on the senses. Whether the film is anything more than a quirky tale of sexual derangement bordering on morbidity is something that two viewings have left me uncertain about. That I have compared it to Dreyer and Bresson is evidence that it is not a work to be ignored, but at the moment I have a gut reaction that there is more than a hint of sensationalism here that somewhat diminishes its artistic integrity when set beside the work of the earlier masters.