Nymphomania,
Vol. 1 and Vol. 2
35mm drama
Written and
directed by Lars Von Trier
Opens: March
21, simultaneously and separately.
Runtime: 118
and 123 minutes respectively
MPAA: R
Country: Denmark
| Belgium | France | Germany | UK
Language:
English
Rating: 3.5 / 5
Inflammatory
subject matter, big Hollywood stars and a controversial director collide to
create Nymphomaniac, a detailed character study of a sex addict from birth to
age 50 that will challenge movie goers as few films have in recent years. It screened at Cannes and word on unsimulated
sex and violence precedes it.
Do not take
lightly warnings of graphic open sex and violence. The film is deeply
disturbing and must be approached carefully.
But committing to it means seeing Vol. 1 and then Vol. 2 on separate
occasions as they do not screen together.
Strangely,
despite the preponderance of sex talk and sex acts and orgasms galore, it’s not
especially erotic and may actually turn people off due to the sheer unrelenting
volume of flesh, sex and depictions of lust.
It plays out against a conversation between Joe and Seligman (Charlotte
Gainsborough and Stellan Skarsgård) as they sit in a bedroom, far apart,
talking quietly. It is a confessional
from someone who doesn’t ask forgiveness.
Gainsborough,
a collaborator with Von Trier on the earlier two films of the Depression
Trilogy, Antichrist and Melancholia, is Joe the addict. The film opens extremely slowly, finally
focusing on a rainy alleyway where Joe lies injured and unconscious. Seligman comes to her aid and takes her home
to recuperate and have tea because she refuses hospital and police.
Joe’s reciprocal
act of friendship is to tell him her rich and diverse history of sex in all its
permutations no detail spared. They
philosophically discuss sex and character and he likens her experiences of sex
to fishing, art, literature, music and history, tying it all together as some
sort of guide to living. Joe says that
her genitals have ruled her life since she discovered their sensations as a
child. Seligman admits he has never had
sex.
Joe’s
adventures as a teenager (played by Stacy Martin) are
never about exploration and communicating with another person. Sex is a means to an end, using her body,
reaching the climax and then setting off to find a new way to do it all over
again. She doesn’t experience happiness
or contentment or satisfaction.
Teenaged
Joe and a girlfriend start a game on a commuter train betting who can have sex
with the most men on board. The winner will receive a bag of chocolate
sweeties. Joe wins first by conquering
her fear and then by breaking down a married man’s barriers with strategy and
manipulation. These may be the tamest
sex scenes in the films and they are public.
Joe
goes on to thousands of sexual experiences which she shares, one of the
strangest being weekly appointments with a male dominator (Jamie Bell). She is
beaten and humiliated and called Fido and soon becomes addicted to that. These trysts come with an extremely high cost
that she is more than willing to pay.
Everything
in Von Trier’s work here is extreme and raw and real. Joe’s conversations with Seligman are
interesting and at times maddening portions of the films as they try to make
sense of things. They are the lulls
between the storms of seduction, abuse, abandonment, whips and handcuffs and
the other details of Joe’s life.
Other
stars include Willem Dafoe, Shia LeBeouf, and Uma Thurman in a career-changing
performance, Christian Slater, and two interesting young actresses Mia Goth and
the aforementioned Martin. The film
carries this disclaimer "None of the professional actors had penetrative
sexual intercourse and all such scenes where [sic] performed by body
doubles."
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