Breaking The Waves: The Original Soundtrack Album [Soundtrack]

breaking the waves: the original soundtrack album [soundtrack]

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Set in an unmercifully rugged, coastal village in Scotland in the 1970s, this extraordinary film by Lars von Trier stars British actress Emily Watson as a barely contained naive named Bess, who holds regular conversations with God and whose pure and intensely personal faith is hardly tolerated by the gruesome Calvinist elders of her church. Bess marries an oil-rig worker (Stellan Skarsgard) and comes to believe that erotic discovery is a part of God's grand plan. But after her spouse is hurt in an accident, she decides that divine instruction is leading her toward the life of a prostitute--with disastrous but somehow beautiful results. Von Trier (The Kingdom) has made a wonderful, entirely unexpected, and rigorous work of discovery in this film, with a formal visual design that recalls classic films by Carl Theodor Dreyer and Robert Bresson. Watson is a phenomenon, her wide-eyed wonder at the world as God's handiwork a breathtaking portrayal of conviction. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker
The Danish director Lars von Trier tells the sad story of a devout Scottish girl (Emily Watson) who becomes a whore in order to save the life of her critically ill husband (Stellan SkarsgÅrd). She is, unmistakably, a female Christ figure, and, as von Trier follows her up the steep road to her carnal Calvary, he seems to be rediscovering some forgotten magic formula for art-house success: he gives the highbrow audience precisely what it wanted in the boom years of the fifties and early sixties-nudity plus theology. The erotic-metaphysical hokum would be somewhat easier to take if the picture displayed anything resembling a genuine religious impulse. But von Trier is no Bergman or Dreyer: he's just a peddler of cheap miracles, a wily postmodernist mountebank. Also with Katrin Cartlidge and Adrian Rawlins. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Breaking The Waves: The Original Soundtrack Album,Various Artists,Hollywood Records,Album Rock,Hard Rock,Original Score,Pop,Pop/Rock,Singer/Songwriter,Soundtrack,Soundtracks & Film Scores

Breaking The Waves: The Original Soundtrack Album [Soundtrack]

Average customer rating:

Breaking the Waves
The things we do for love
intense and spiritually very interesting
Most Powerful Film On Von Trier's CV.
extremely mixed emotions

Breaking The Waves: The Original Soundtrack Album
Various Artists
Manufacturer: Hollywood Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B000000OGO
Release Date: 1996-11-26

Tracks:

In A Broken Dream - Python Lee Jackson
Hot Love - T-Rex
Child In Time - Deep Purple
Suzanne - Laonard Cohen
Virginia Plain - Roxy Music
All The Way From Memohis - Mott The Hoople
He's Gonna Step On You Again - John Kongos
Whisky In The Jar - Thin Lizzy
Whiter Shade Of Pale - Procul Harum
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
Cross Eyed Mary - Jethro Tull
Siciliana - J.S. Bach

Customer Reviews:

Breaking the Waves.......2007-07-11

Von Trier's disturbing, fiercely unconventional "Waves" features the magnificent British actress Emily Watson in a daringly masochistic role no Hollywood starlet would have touched. With her fearless incarnation of the childlike, ever-suffering Bess, who comes to believe that God's plan is for her to be a tramp, Von Trier wrings heartbreak and tragedy from her brutal encounters with Calvinist locals and roughneck seamen. And just when you're not sure how much more Bess (or you) can bear, he introduces a shockingly beautiful epiphany that will steal your breath. The Oscar-nominated "Waves" might be tough-going for some, but its ingenious camerawork and spiritual catharsis is worth diving in for.

The things we do for love.......2007-01-02

-In a Puritan town where religion is the number one priority and women are confined to being just housewives a religious woman that has conversations with God finds the love of her life in a worker at the village called Jan. The two soon marry and fall madly in love with each other but tragedy strikes as Jan gets badly injured in an accident at work that leaves him paralyzed from the neck down. This may spell doom for any other relationship but Bess really loves her man and is determined to stay with him forever but an unusual request from Jan complicates things as he ask her to do something that requires her to give the ultimate sacrifice

-Now unless you have a heart made of ice and bitterness then I think you'll either be in tears or in deep depression after watching this movie. It's just so sad what happens in the movie as we see the character Bess do things she doesn't want to do in order to make the love of her life happy. The movie's slow pace helps greatly with the 180 turn that it pulls on the audience half way through the movie. At first glance the movie seems like a heartbreaking romantic story of a woman that loves her husband even though he's crippled from the neck down but then slowly turns from that to a dark tragic story of a woman going to the extremes to make him happy.

-I guess the super cool thing to do in order to prove how knowledgeable I am in movies will be to say how I've been a fan of director Lars von Trier and he's one of my favorites but the truth is before this movie I never knew the man existed and honestly despite my love for this amazing movie I haven't really seen anything that he's done after or before this film. But I will try to someday so I can join his fan club and seem important and clever like the people who pretend to like filmmakers no one's heard of just to be cool. Emily Watson plays the schizophrenic Bess who gives an Oscar worthy performance here. Her character isn't exactly stupid in the traditional sense but she is more loyal than anything which in the end makes her do things that even she knows to be wrong. I know people will criticize it for not being realistic but there really are women like that in the world that will do anything for love. Stellan Skarsgard whose one of our overlooked actors plays her husband Jan who is pretty hard to figure out at times. We don't know whether she shares Bess' intense passionate love or whether he's just a horny man that's having fun with a local girl.

-This is one of those movies that I love but won't dare recommend to anyone due to how depressing it is but if you're dead on the inside and have no emotion what so ever then it maybe a great idea to check it out.

intense and spiritually very interesting.......2006-12-11

What a powerful cinematic experience! BREAKING THE WAVES, directed by the always-controversial Lars von Trier, explores the concepts of love and faith with more poignancy and more intensity than any other film that I can think of.

The movie opens with Bess (Emily Watson) trying to justify to the elders of her church why she should be allowed to marry Jan, a comparatively worldly outsider. Bess is from a very small and insulated Scottish community, and the church she belongs to is VERY conservative and traditional (not to mention patriarchical). It is with some reluctancy that the old bearded men finally approve her marriage.

Although Bess is not quite as rigidly backward as the church elders, she is a deeply faithful woman. In fact, as the film progresses, the purity of Bess's religious beliefs transforms her into a saintly, if not Christ-like character.

Next to Bess's devotion to God (perhaps even surpassing it), is her devotion to Jan. Bess loves her husband completely, unquestioningly, almost madly. In fact, Bess is at first hesitant to tell her husband how deeply she cares for him, for fear that he will be angry with her for the intensity of her feelings. Fairly early on in the film (and I don't think I'm revealing too much by saying so), Jan is severely injured in an oil-rigging accident. This is when Bess's love for him is put to the test in surprising and frankly disturbing ways.

As with any Lars von Trier film, BREAKING THE WAVES is not for the faint of heart. The story is difficult, and there is a lot of frank sexuality. I think any thoughtful viewer, though, will recognize that this film is far from an exploitive shock-piece. After viewing it for the first time the other night, I found myself (and I'm not religious, by the way) contemplating some profoundly spiritual questions. What does it mean to love unconditionally? Do any of us really have pure faith, or are we all too jaded? Why was it necessary for Christ to sacrifice himself to save us? Is this morbid, or is it the ultimate demonstration of love?

The film is generally heavy, but there are also several light moments. One of the most delightful aspects of the film is Emily Watson's performance. While the acting was excellent across the board, I couldn't take my eyes off of her face. I was reminded of Giulietta Masina in LA STRADA. Both actresses are extraordinarily expressive and have a sort of wide-eyed naivety that breaks your heart. Actually, I believe the similarities between the two roles extend beyond the actresses' facial expressions, but I'll leave that for you to contemplate. First, you've got to watch this movie. I highly recommend that you do so.

Most Powerful Film On Von Trier's CV........2006-08-08

Breaking The Waves is quite possibly one of the best, and most powerful film of the 90's. It is considered one of the films in the Dogme movement started by Danish filmmakers including this film's director, Lars Von Trier. The Dogme movement was started in 1995, and is a set of rules, that director's can follow which allows the filmmaking to be at it's purest for cheapest, with no special effect and no big budget, this allows the filmmakers to focus more on the story and the actor's involvement with their characters. Although this is not a proper Dogme film, it does follow some of the other rules Lars Von Trier vowed to keep. This is Emily Watson's first feature film and definately is one of her finest roles to date. She achieved an acadamy award nomination for best actress as the leading character Bess, and the film also won the grand jury award at the Cannes Film Festival, along with best film of the year at the european film awards. The film was written by Lars Von Trier, Peter Asmussen, and the uncredited David Pirie.

Breaking The Waves is set in the early 1970's and is about a faithful young woman named bess, who lives in a small town in Scotland. Bess is a very faithful person towards her religon and has a previous mention of being at a psychiatric hospital. At the beginning of the film, Bess is confronting the townsmen who are incharge of the church she attends and is asking their permission to marry an oil rig worker named Jan, who is played by Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård. After Bess and Jan get married, Jan has to go back, and Bess' world ends once he leaves to go back and work at the oil rig. Bess' caretaker and sister in law Dodo, encourages her to live a normal life while he's away, and that she shouldn't just stop living. Jan phones his wife every day and doesn't neglect her. Bess prays for her husband to come home, although he would be returning to her in ten days, she can't wait that long, and prays for him to come home immediatly. Jan has a fatal accident at the rig and forces him to come home to attend the hospital. Bess soon finds out from the doctor who's a good friend of her's that he's parralized for life. She soon starts to feel guilty that her beloved is parralized because of her, that she prayed for her husband to return quickly, and thinks that she caused the accident to happen. Jan realises that he can't ever touch or make love to his wife again, and encourages her to find a lover and tell him every detail so that he can never forget what it feels like. Both of them are deeply in love, and Jan pleads her to help him never forget, so that he, as he claims, may still live. Bess beleives that this whole fiasco is a test of her love for him.

The key highlight of the picture is Emily Watson's truly amazing performance, and is one of the main reasons you should watch this film. But, there is not one poor performance in this film by any actor. Skarsgård is absolutely sensational as the crippled Jan, and gives a very detailed and heart breaking performance alongside Emily Watson. Other brilliant performances come from Katrin Cartlidge as the nurse Dodo and sister in-law to Bess, and as well as Adrian Rawlins as the caring Docter Richardson. Von Trier is known to be hard on his cast, but is rewarded with truly heartfelt performances from the cast and excellent direction. The cinematography is what you expect from any Dogme film(one of the rules is to only use handheld cameras), the handheld camera gives us the personal and intimate moments of the characters, it's not only stylish and unique, but it also gives us a feeling that we are one of the characters in the film, that we are a spectator of the events that are taking place, and that we are in their heads, that we are experiencing what they are feeling at that precise moment. The film features an exilarating 1970's rock soundtrack, that has mostly glam rock, the music is only played at the introduction of each new chapter, and only once, during actual footage, T-Rex's rollicking Hot Love. The script is very well thought out, and very meaningful dialogue with heart pounding story.

Overall, Breaking The Waves is a definate knock-out, and rightly deserves the praise it got from critics and cinema goers. But, it isn't for the average movie watcher and would only appeal to avid Von Trier fans and art house viewers. The film should most definately not be missed by anybody who is looking for a tale filled with love and faith. The end result is one of the most powerful films of all time and one of the most depressing films ever. The ending is an absolute tragic event and gets all of the character's emotions thrown at us with devestating results. This and Requiem For A Dream are possibly the most powerful films and saddest films I've ever seen. This is a very tough second viewing, and won't reccomend to the sensetive viewer. The film contains explicit sex, nudity, strong language, and graphic violence. But, for everybody else, a film to see on a cold rainy day, infact, any time of the day will do.

There are absolutely no special features on the region 1 disc, I own the region 2 disc, it hardly has anything extra, but specialy selected chapters with comentary from Lars Von Trier and other crew involved. The film: 4.5/5 The extras: 2.5/5(R2), 0/5(R1)

extremely mixed emotions.......2006-07-27

I have never had such mixed feelings about a film. I think the film in and of itself is one of the worst I've ever seen: Lars "von" Trier is in my opinion a very sick individual, and the whole "Dogma" movement is an extraordinary exercise in silliness. I felt dazed and down for days after seeing this film, due to its twisted psychology, and the ending (with the bells ringing in the sky) is one of the corniest ever - pure kitsch. On the other hand, Emily Watson's performance in the leading role is possibly the best I've ever seen on film (up there with Brando as Vito Corleone and Anthony Quinn as Zorba). For that alone it's worth seeing.

Average customer rating:

Breaking the Waves
Original Soundtrack
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Pop | Styles | Music

Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

General | Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music

Hard Rock | Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music

Movie Scores | Soundtracks | Styles | Music

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Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) | Classic Rock | Styles | Music

Soundtracks | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00004UR9K
Release Date: 2006-02-07

Tracks:

In a Broken Dream - Python Lee Jackson, Rod Stewart
Hot Love - T. Rex
Child in Time - Deep Purple
Suzanne - Leonard Cohen
Virginia Plain - Roxy Music
All the Way from Memphis - Mott the Hoople
He's Gonna Step on You Again - John Kongos
Whiskey in the Jar - Thin Lizzy
Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harum
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
Cross-Eyed Mary - Jethro Tull
Silciliana-Sonata BWV 1031 2nd Movement - Johann Sebastian Bach

Album Description

Soundtrack for the 1996 film by director Lars Von Trier. Artists featured on the album are Python Lee Jackson, T-Rex, Deep Purple, Leonard Cohen, Roxy Music, Elton John and more. EMI.

Music:

Music

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