The silence throughout Breaking The Waves is palpable. Lars Von Trier’s English language debut follows Bess, a woman who lives in an isolated religious community in Scotland. She meets an oil rig worker, Jan. The two fall in love, get married and consummate the marriage. However, when a tragic accident befalls Jan and leaves him paralysed, he requests that Bess take on other lovers and discuss her sex life with them to him. Bess is distraught, as she attempts to grapple with her faith and her desire for her husband. Though Breaking The Waves is filled with conversation, the non-diegetic music only occurs in between scenes.
As with much of Von Trier’s oeuvre, Breaking The Waves is split into chapters and each chapter is denoted by a title card. Ironically, the music used in contemporary pop music which would not be listened to inside of Bess’s isolated community. David Bowie, Elton John, Mott the Hoople and Bob Dylan occupy the airwaves of the spaces in between, the places where Bess in neither arriving nor going, where time is moving but not quite.
Only at the end of the film is any other sound heard. In an early scene, Jan remarks that there are no bells in the church which occupies the centre of community life. At the films end, Jan is back working on the oil rig and he hears the ringing of two huge bells, almost as an act of God, from above him. The bells, and the music, is calling him home.