Bess to find a lover. Bess is devastated and storms out. Jan then attempts to commit suicide and fails. He falls unconscious and is readmitted to hospital. Jan's condition deteriorates. He urges Bess to find another lover and tell him the details, as it will be as if they are together and will revitalise his spirits. Though her sister-in-law Dodo constantly reassures her that nothing she does will affect his recovery, Bess begins to believe these suggestions are the will of God and in accordance with loving Jan wholly. Despite her repulsion and inner turmoil at the thought of being with other men, she perseveres in her own sexual debasement as she believes it will save her husband. Bess throws herself at Jan's doctor, but when he rebuffs her, she takes to picking up men off the street and allowing herself to be brutalised in increasingly cruel sexual encounters. The entire village is scandalised by these doings, and Bess is excommunicated. In the face of being cast out from her church, she proclaims, "You cannot love words. You cannot be in love with a word. You can only love a human being". Dodo and Jan's doctor agree the only way to keep Bess safe from herself is to have her committed, and as far away from her husband as possible, whom they believe to be in terminal decline. It is then that Bess decides to make what she thinks is the ultimate sacrifice for Jan: she unflinchingly goes out to a derelict ship full of barbarous sailors, who violently gang rape and attack her, causing her death. Her church deems her soul to be lost and hell-bound. Unbeknownst to the church elders, Jan and his friends have substituted bags of sand for Bess's body inside her sealed coffin. Jan is later shown, substantially restored to health despite the doctors not having thought it possible, burying Bess in the ocean, deep in grief. The film ends in magical realism as Bess's body is nowhere to be seen on the sonar, and church bells ring from on high in the sky. Cast Production Development Breaking the Waves was von Trier's first film after founding the Dogme 95 movement with fellow Danish director Thomas Vinterberg. Nonetheless, the film breaks many of the movement's "rules", including built sets, post-dubbed music and computer graphics. It was shot entirely with handheld Super35mm cameras and is the