Nymphomaniac (2013), cut version, vol. 1 & vol. 2, or, Lars Von Trier's Suck It

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Sex Drama of the Year

This is a review of Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 and Nymphomaniac: Volume 2, as they play in Copenhagen these days, in a cut version to suit international markets, as two two-hour films with a ten minute break in between.
I saw them in a jam-packed theater last night and had a very intense experience with Danish master director Lars Von Trier's latest magnus opus.
If the films should be reviewed individually, - which they seem to welcome themselves, being parted with credits, and released (perhaps) in America as two individual films this spring, - I would rate them as follow:

Nymphomaniac: Volume 1   ♥♥♥♥♥
Nymphomaniac: Volume 2   ♥♥♥♥

Incredible group photo of most of the stars of Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac

Nymphomaniac is about a middle-aged woman, Joe, who is found battered down in an alley by an elderly gentleman, Seligman. He takes her to his apartment, where she begins to tell him her life story, which is the story of a nymphomaniac.
For those unaware of the diagnosis, a nymphomaniac is also what is known as a sex addict. Joe has an unhealthy obsession with sex and sexual stimulation in all its forms, and this dictates her life and makes her live a life of seemingly unavoidable disasters.
Volume 1 is surprisingly warm and humorous, given Trier's previous films and person. Joe's friendly conversation with Seligman lends the film a charming narrative device, and Stellan Skarsgård (Breaking the Waves (1996)) has one of his best parts ever, and puts wonderful life to his character. We quickly go through Joe's childhood play with her sexuality to her youth as a frivolous searcher and soon fanatical sex enthusiast.
The only really dubious acting performance in the film unfortunately comes from Jens Albinus (The Boss of it All (2006)), who gets serviced by the young Joe. And this part is only on the screen for a minute or two.
Otherwise, a highlight of Volume 1 is the scene with Uma Thurman (Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (2003; 2004)), who plays with an electric emotional intensity that wells out into the theater and fascinates. A great, great scene:

Uma Thurman is one of the actors, who deliver incredibly fine work in Nymphomaniac

The only real discomfort I suffered in Volume 1 was during the hospital scenes, in which Joe's father dies. He is played by Christian Slater (He Was A Quiet Man (2007)).
As most of the audiences, I left the theater for the break high on the film and excited and a little anxious to see Volume 2.

The second volume leaves out Skarsgård's calming Seligman-figure for most of the runtime. Instead we are introduced to Joe's escalating sex mania, as she becomes a mother and choses her addiction over her family and delves into different fetishes. Her great tragedy is that she has overused her vagina to an extent where it becomes numb and later disfigured.
By and by she cannot cover her regular job anymore and gets a new job that relies on her moral plasticity and sexual knowledge.
She is introduced to new levels of depravity and tragedy and continues her long journey of addiction and extreme loneliness with no other alternatives in her sight.
Needless to say, Volume 2 is discouraging with a vengeance.
If some of us saw Volume 1 and thought for a while optimistically that Trier had lightened up, Volume 2 clearly shows that he hasn't, and that he was just fooling us, perhaps so as to tramp us down even further in a muddy, black hole of despair in the film's second half.
Volume 1 is fine to show anywhere, in my opinion, for grown-ups mind you, but in Volume 2, lavish amounts of explicit sex and violence made me feel sick in my stomach, and the film still sits like a dark cloud around my head. The ending makes all the difference, and, without spoiling it, I will say that Trier goes to new pessimistic lengths with the ending of Nymphomaniac, which can best be described as utter hopelessness. 
This deprives the film of great praise from me, since my favorite Trier-film still is the amazing, cathartic masterpiece Breaking the Waves (1996), - perhaps his only film to end on a hopeful note.
At the same time, Nymphomaniac is an amazing piece of cinema and totally unique. It is a crazy cornucopia, which could only be made and realized by Trier, and although I had hoped that he would have mellowed and served a less tangy, stomach-turning piece of pie, it still comes from an exquisite pie.

As noted earlier, Nymphomaniac is embellished by several great acting performances: Besides those already saluted, Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist (2009)) is phenomenal as the older Joe. Jean-Marc Barr (Europa (1991)) has a memorable scene. Young model Mia Goth does well in her shocking scenes with Joe. Willem Dafoe (The Boondock Saints (1999)) plays the only really evil character in the film, a near-satanic man, and he is a specialist at such roles and does great. Shia LaBeouf (Eagle Eye (2008)) plays his part as Jerôme, Joe's love, with great sensibility and grace. Young actress Stacy Martin (The Clown, upcoming) is impressive as young Joe, and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot (2000)) is fierce and believable as a sadist practitioner in some very lengthy, almost unbearable-to-watch scenes, in which Joe (and us as audiences) are slapped, beaten and whipped harshly. It certainly is (upliftingly) difficult to imagine Bell returning as Tintin after this...
Nymphomaniac is a sprawling tale filled with digressions, which was part of Trier's design and idea for the film, for it to be more like a great novel than a film. This only partly succeeds: In Volume 1, the digressions are mostly Seligman's, as he informs Joe and us of points on numbers, fish, literature, knots etc., and mostly these digressions are humorous and welcomed by audience interest. In Volume 2, most of the digressions are Joe's, and they are mostly poorly disguised outlets for Trier's own opinions on this and that. Because Trier has not permitted himself to speak in public any more, (since the debacle at Cannes with his previous, apocalyptic Melancholia (2011), in which he said he sympathized with Hitler, and was subsequently kicked out of the festival, and later questioned by Danish police), Trier takes the chance with Nymphomaniac to speak in VOLUMES. About democracy, political correctness, pedophilia, hypocrisy and other issues dear to his heart. Joe is the speaker of these ideas. And most of them are well-founded and reasonable, - especially the thoughts on pedophilia where meaningful to me, - but there are just too much of it, and it doesn't brighten up the already heavy tonnage in Volume 2.
It also doesn't levitate that the final scenes are the lengthy conclusion to the conversation between Seligman and Joe, in which they both seem close to falling asleep.
Nymphomaniac is packed with a heady mix of pop, rock and classical music; it is technically superior and thematically charged. It makes Steve McQueen's celebrated, good film Shame (2011) look like a meek parenthesis on the subject of sex addiction. Nymphomaniac is the definitive cinematic work on the issue and will probably remain so for decades to come.
It is taboo-breaking, depressing, funny, riveting, terrible, crazy and wild to see: Trier still knows how to develop a female lead that comes to totally own the audiences, even if she's mostly bad, and we suffer greatly because of it.
The film is set to come out in America in March and April, respectively, and I am curious to see how that will play out, and in how many countries the films will finally land. They are bound to become controversial and could result in downright hysteria and bans. I predict Nymphomaniac will be called racist, blasphemous, dangerous, illegal, incestuous, satanic, misanthropic and other dubious 'distinctions', even if I don't think either of them really fit. But it does walk on a fine line on many of these accounts.
How to judge Nymphomaniac? As a morality tale, or rather an immorality tale? As a film about sex? A drama? A literary film? The third film in Trier's trilogy of depression, (which also includes Antichrist (2009) and Melancholia (2011))?
I think the most correct and crediting way is to view it as a film about sex addiction, about being a nymphomaniac.
Seen in this light, Nymphomaniac is the bleakest of views, showing no feasible way out or solution to the strongly motivated addiction, which only results in continued avalanches of calamities in the film's universe.
For this reason, and because Trier has been better before, - often when he has confined himself more and been less indulgent than is the case here, - I cannot totally embrace Nymphomaniac. But I will still recommend it to every one, who is up for it.
And I consider it Trier's best film since his hilarious dark comedy The Boss of It All (2006).

Related posts:

Lars Von Trier: 2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]  
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2013 in films - according to Film Excess
Antichrist (2009) - Trier's cabin-in-the-woods psycho-horror

Watch the Rammstein-charged trailer here

Budget: 4.7 mil. $
Box office: 10.2 mil. $ so far
= Still not possible to say


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