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Thread: NYMPHOMANIAC: VOL. II (Lars von Trier 2013)

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    NYMPHOMANIAC: VOL. II (Lars von Trier 2013)

    Lars von Trier: Nymphomaniac: Vol II (2013)

    CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG AND STELLEN SARSGARD: STORYTELLER AND LISTENER

    Volume II: Erotic obsession grows old: Joe finishes her story

    In this second half of von Trier's Nymphomaniac things turn grimmer and more extreme in Joe's story recounted to Seligman. Vol. II shows the decreasing returns and increasingly desperate measures of a life devoted to sexual pleasure as one ages. Somewhat surprisingly, since Charlotte Gainsbourg is only 42, her character, Joe, turns out at time of frame-tale to be 50. No wonder the rough sex she has turned to to revive faded sensation is hard on her. We have to decide if the whole makes a good impression, even if this is not up to the level of von Trier's most powerful work. It clearly does, because the scenes Joe narrates remain original and striking, and the interruptions to discuss with Seligman maintain the film's emphasis on cool, self-reflexive narrative. If this is porn it's a surprisingly unpornographic and thoughtful kind, which is interesting to contemplate, even if it leaves us unmoved as well as unaroused. But who's to say it's not moving? It's strong enough to leave an impression and make you think, anyway. As always with von Trier some will hate and dismiss; others will love, puzzle over, and debate.

    As the narrative recommences, Joe is back with Jerôme, her deflowerer, in a loving relationship, and they have a child, but she has lost all sexual sensation. Now Seligman, not inappropriately, reveals to Joe he's a virgin with no interest apart from intellectual in sex. This explains and perhaps justifies his odd comments all along on how Joe's stories remind him of Fibonacci numbers, fly fishing, and so on: he cannot relate sex to sex. He insists his situation makes him the ideally fair and neutral judge of her sex-drenched personal history. More high-toned discussion comes in, of Beethoven's fugues, and of the difference between the eastern and western churches, contrasted by Seligman as churches of joy (eastern) and suffering (western). Joe begins the sixth "chapter" of her story. These chapters up to now are 1. The Compleat Angler; 2. Jerôme; 3. Mrs. H; 4. Delerium; 5. The Little Organ School. Now comes 6. The Eastern & Western Church (the Silent Duck). In the numerology of the film's two parts, the chapters are 5 and 3, corresponding to the 5 and 3 thrusts with which Jerôme deflowered the young Joe.

    Now we see a lot of of poor Shia LaBeoef for a while. Nobody who's written about this film seems to have much use for him or his performance or the "contemporary London accent" he was coached to use here. Perhaps all this was just what von Trier desired. LaBoeuf may be doing his best but seems out of his depth, though he does show a playful side in a restaurant scene were he dares Joe to put a long spoon up her cunt and she puts a whole bunch of them there that fall out as they leave the table, to the surprise of the waiter (Udo Kier).

    In a sudden jump, Joe begins to be played in the narrative action by Charlotte Gainsbourg for the scene where she has a quick liaison in a cheap hotel with two Africans found on the street. It is the conceit that the African (it's his choice to bring his brother) speaks not a word of English, and Joe thought that would be a turn-on. No mention of the clichéd more obvious turn-on for a white woman of black men with the large penises. But that aspect is clearly emphasized in the camera's many furtive glances at these men's muscular nakedness and ample members, the first real male frontal nudity in the film, complete with erections, though the men begin arguing and Joe slips away. This leads to a discussion of "political correctness" with Seligman when Joe refers to the men as "Negroes."

    Jamie Bell is chillingly effective as the cool, soft-spoken S&M master K, to whom Joe goes for stimulation (which she gets), the film's most terrifying and disturbing sequence. This is pure sadomasochism, drained of its usual style, trappings and posturing. More interjected points from Seligman include the Prusik mountain climber's knot, which K might have used to tie her up; Freud's idea that "polymorphous perversity" (which would include S&M) is a propensity found in infants; and the assertion that the Passion of the Christ (as viewers of Mel Gibson's film might agree) is full of sadomasochism. Joe's slavish involvement in K's sessions leads to an incident replaying one in Antichrist, of fatal parental neglect, and when Joe chooses K over her parental duties, Jerône takes their child, Marcel, and leaves her. Her attempt at recovery meetings, prompted by her boss at work (we may be surprised that she has a paying job) leads her to reject the notion that she's a "sex addict," with a problem, and insist she's simply and defiantly a "nymphomaniac." She stalks out of the meeting after declaring her love of her cunt and her "filthy, dirty lust." This was chapter 7: The Mirror -- Joe has taken a good look at herself. She will take another look later, though, and conclude differently.

    Joe has largely given up sex due to the damage to her sex organs caused by years of overindulgence. Leaving her office job, she starts her own illegal debt collecting business on the suggestion of L (Willem Dafoe), who's in the same line of work. Here, she makes use of her experience with cruelty learned from K. Her forgiveness of a revealed pedophile (Jean-Marc Barr) leads to an elaborate explanation to Seligman: basically she identifies as a fellow sexual outlaw, and she forgives him because he has resisted his impulses.

    At L's suggestion later Joe semi-adopts a girl, P (Mia Goth), who develops a lesbian attachment to her and becomes her assistant, whereupon they're sent to pressure none other than: Jerôme! It's "One of those coincidences you don't like," she warns Seligman. These bizarre turns may nudge us into seeing this has all along been basically a picaresque tale. P carries a gun, against Joe's will, and this is chapter 7: The Gun, a hint of violence, attempted and real, to come. Joe has declared friendship. Seligman has given a pro-feminist speech seeing Joe's sexual extremism as heroic female self-realization. A joke? One never knows, and one's not meant to. But whatever its comic moments, Joe's story is more heroic and tragic than any kind of mere homily or remonstrance. Nymphomaniac: Vol. II's conclusion is strange, perverse, and disturbing, with curiously touching moments, and bears out the promise that the relationship between a narrator and his listener, when the tale is one of sex, is one that's both intimate and dangerous. And von Trier's ambition has been rewarded by an overlong (if unfortunately divided) film that, whatever its unevenness of tone and sometimes dubious use of actors, remains bold, memorable and thought-provoking.

    Nymphomaniac: Vol. II, 123 mins., debuted at various times in various countries starting in Dec. 2013; its US theatrical debut was 4 April 2014.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 08-29-2014 at 02:27 AM.

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    Bold, Memorable and Thought-Provoking.
    Sounds good to me.

    Do you think Trier has brought anything to the table about the condition of sex addiction? Other than showing it's possible to be Heroic about it in life? Was that the point do you think? That there are complexities to sex addicts that may lead to redeeming them, if only we saw them for what they are and placed emotions properly? Or is it so arbitrary that it's just a guess?
    It sounds like Trier is challenging the viewer to find redemption in the visceral onslaught you describe.
    Is there redemption? Is Joe redeemed?
    "Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd

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    Yes. One way you can see this is as the portrait of a dangerous consuming passion, or an addiction. The body destroyed, the marriage destroyed, because of it: that's addiction. But it's called "nymphomaniac" using that old-fashioned term to distinguish this from conventional modern addiction-and-recovery tales and most of the way Joe denies she's a conventional addict. She "loves" her "dirty, filthy lust," remember. So there are insights into addiction and also the refusal to regard it as merely addiction and preference to consider it something more "heroic" yes and more tragic. Though it's also intermittently a deadpan comedy.

    Von Trier is also using sex and the semblance of porn because it's transgressive, it's the most shocking material to the conventional viewer that he has ready access to. Mark Kermode in the GUARDIAN writes:
    Throughout, the consummate agent provoc-auteur remains torn between an angsty interest in self-obliteration and an adolescent obsession with the illusory mechanics of hardcore – a fetish that dates back to the days of The Idiots, and which has made porn doubles and prosthetic genitals a recurrent element of his arthouse palette.
    Though von Trier chose to "gag" himself re: publicity due to his Cannes débâcle the use of the jokey spelling of the title as "Nymph()maniac," which I chose to ignore, is surely adolescent on his part. That jokey will to provoke is still there but is also part of the boldness and originality. And he knew that there would be moral, Christian, or conventional viewers who would regard Nymphomaniac as nothing but vile trash from start to finish.

    This is in no way a realistic narrative. I still think as I said about Volume 1 that it's self-reflexive, a story about storytelling, and the constant returns to Joe and Seligman at Seligman's monastic but cozy apartment are as important as or more important than the scenes from Joe's "life." As a narrative it often has the appearance of a picaresque novel, more than a story of a life, a series of surprising twists and turns interrupted by odd digressions introduced by Seligman. At one point Joe says "I think that's your most irrelevant and trivial digression yet!" So von Trier's having fun with those. Is Seligman the ideal sympathetic, yet unbiased, listener to all this, or is he just wacko? But isn't this most of all the story of the relationship, the one neutral, kindly, asexual one, between Seligman and Joe?

    My favorite moments in the film are purely visual, like this triple split-screen sequence:







    Jamie Bell's sadist, K, is the scariest and most brilliant impersonation in the movie:

    Jamie Bell as K in Nymphomaniac Volume II

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris Knipp View Post
    She "loves" her "dirty, filthy lust," remember. So there are insights into addiction and also the refusal to regard it as merely addiction and preference to consider it something more "heroic" yes and more tragic.
    This is in no way a realistic narrative. As a narrative it often has the appearance of a picaresque novel, more than a story of a life, a series of surprising twists and turns interrupted by odd digressions introduced by Seligman.
    So Trier is giving us humans, in all their 50/50 "filthy dirty lust" and "asexual" glory.
    Can't wait to see it. I have no problem with being confounded by an unrealistic narrative if it's done interestingly, and Trier is Interesting.
    "Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd

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    It's very interesting. It may not be deeply emotionally involving, but how many movies really are? You go through many experience sand emotions here, many.

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    Thanks for the review. Trier is provocative and talented but his nihilism, petulance, and pessimism have been grating on me for a long time, and I think this is his "darkest" (most nihilistic and perverse) film. I would not dare miss it. In fact, I've seen it twice now.

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    I've found others darker, personally. ANTICHRIST is pretty dark, and I've never been able to watch BREAKING THE WAVES. Compared to some of Von Trier's work NYMPHOMANIAC I is downright fun to watch. So I don't see it quite as you do.

    Armond White has a review of both volumes in Out. White has been publishing in new locations and I'd lost track till today. See the Vol I page of Filmleaf.

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    It is akin to splitting hairs to debate which Trier film is most nihilistic and perverse. In the case of Nymphomaniac, it is the denouement that makes it particularly so, as I see it.
    SPOILERS
    P's betrayal and humiliation of Joe, and Joe's killing Seligman provide a most perverse resolution, one in which Joe's good will or positive regard toward P and Seligman's genuine attempt to understand Joe and to think of her as a good person are defeated. Joe says at one point that sex or libido is the strongest force in human beings but the movie/Trier says that she's wrong, that thanatos wins out every time. Trier's films keep saying over and over that human beings are essentially "bad", primarily evil, hell-bent on destruction.

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    Thanks for the awesome comments on these two movies guys.
    Love him or hate him, Trier makes exciting cinema. That's what we're all looking for aren't we?

    His "petulance" is most welcome. I'll watch anything he makes. He has Masterpieces under his belt. It's undeniable.
    I think the main thing to remember is that Trier's cinematic Hero is Dreyer. He's trying to be the Dreyer of the 21st Century.
    (But I concede that some would probably say that's bunk, that he has nothing in common with Carl T. Dreyer). I think he does.
    "Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd

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    Spoiler alert!!!

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