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NYMPHOMANIAC PT 1 & PT 2

 

If you've seen the red band trailer for Nymphomanic or the provocative character posters, and you're familiar with the work of Lars Von Trier, you already know you can expect some ravishing visual poetry, unflinching portrayals of sex and violence, and a jet black sense of humour.

Nymphomaniac begins when Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard), walking home in the rain, finds Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) lying brutally beaten in an alley. He takes her home to his small apartment, gives her some dry clothes and a cup of tea, and sits down to listen to her story. Joe explains that to make him understand, she will have to go back to the very beginning. Seligman responds by saying "Long...long is good”. And so Joe begins to tell the long and sordid tale of her sexual misadventures, while Seligman listens on intently, occasionally interrupting to draw parallels between Joe's epic sex life and fly fishing for trout.

Nymphomaniac is divided into eight chapters that are spread out over two, two hour films (edited from what was originally one, truly epic five and a half hours. Seeing the state of the penises that made it into the version I saw, I dread to think what Lovecraftian monstrosities didn’t make the cut). Pt 1 chronicles Joe's life from childhood through her teenage years and into her twenties. In these chapters, newcomer Stacy Martin takes on the role of a younger Joe. She absolutely puts in a fine and brave performance, but at the same time I couldn't help anticipating Pt 2, where I knew the story would catch up to the Gainsbourg years (I’m not faulting Martin's performance, this has more to do with my love for Gainsbourg as an actress, who I could watch drinking coffee and reading the paper all day...not in a creepy way...ok, in a creepy way).

Pt 1 is definitely the least depressing part of this "Depression Trilogy” closer, sardonic and even hilarious at times (“The Depression Trilogy” consists of Antichrist, Melancholia, and Nymphomaniac, films related only in their shared themes of grief and depression). There is a terrific scene where Uma Thurman, in what could be her finest performance, shows up as a wife who confronts her cheating husband in Joe's apartment, and asks politely to see "the whoring bed", that ranks as one of my favourite scenes of the year. It's certainly one of the funniest, up there with the Lego ghost scene in The Lego Movie (in case you're wondering, the fact that both of these films amused me is all they have in common. If you enjoyed The Lego Movie that’s no guarantee you'll enjoy Nymphomaniac. I would never describe Nymphomaniac as a pure delight, for example). The rest of Pt 1 details the various sexual misadventures of Joe's youth in explicit, if not at all erotic detail. (Don't think graphic sex scenes can be entirely unerotic? Behold Fassbender's sex scenes in Shame...or Madonna's in Body Of Evidence).  It’s very much a romp, that is until the closing chapters...

The dark turn Pt 1 takes toward the end leads us into the beginning of Pt 2, which is still blackly comic, but far less jaunty. We catch up with Gainsbourg's Joe, who has settled down but not rid herself of her sexual appetite. After succeeding in numbing herself over the years, both physically and emotionally, she has to find new, extreme ways to satisfy her addiction. Gainsbourg is phenomenal, as Joe ventures into unexplored and dangerous sexual territory in a desperate attempt to feel something, anything. The most shocking scenes in this chapter are not of sex, but of violence, a reminder once again how absurd it is that realistic depictions of consensual sex in a film made for adults who most likely engage in consensual sex themselves (or at least know someone who does), can arouse indignation and moral outrage, while realistic depictions of non-consensual murder can be seen on TV every week (See the latest episode of Hannibal? A man tore his skin off trying to free himself from a giant eye made of dead naked men. No shit, on network television folks).

Nymphomaniac is pure Lars Von Trier, which depending on your feelings towards the eccentric Danish auteur, will either be a recommendation or a damning condemnation. But for me pure Trier means a remarkable, thought provoking, beautiful, funny, magnificently absurd masterpiece.

 

Written by Richard O Connell
14/03/14


 


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