Nymphomaniac: Art That You Can Wank To

Shia and Stacey as Jerome and young Joe. Already an iconic image. 

In approaching a Von Trier film, there is a ritual. You cannot be hung over, just have had a meal, or be with anyone else. Literally anyone. The shock value alone will leave you open for public mockery. So it's saturday, it's too cold for the beach. I don't want to get out of my newly bough plush bathrobe from Restoration Hardware that my mom so generously got for me last weekend (thanks mom!) so there was nothing better to do than order Nymphomaniac Parts I and II and binge watch them until my mind was mush and I had lost all feeling in my lady parts and decided to never have sex again as long as I live. But that's typical Von Trier. His as most would say 'misogynistic' treatment of his female characters is a hallmark of most of his films, scratch that, all of his films, even though artfully and masterfully executed. I am not one to label Von Trier a chauvinist. I'd label him a Nazi but that's a whole different story (we all remember what happened at Cannes). Why is he not misogynistic in my opinion? Because throughout the film and afterwards you are very much in an empathetic and completely kindred state with the female protagonist. His films do not show women as victims, though throughout they are subjected to all sorts of abuse, mental, physical, verbal, you name it. His protagonists stand in defiance of said abuse and are always women that know exactly what it is they want and know how to ascertain it. In the same breath I would say that James Cameron par example is a misogynistic director, and if I have to explain why, you might as well stop readying right now. Von Trier even gives Skarsgård a monologue about the vicious double standard that women have to deal with in terms of being aware and in pursuit of sexual pleasure. 

Stacey Martin as young Joe, later played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. I really hope I don't have to explain what's going on in this picture. A character who's 'coming of age' was considerably different from most. 

Anyway on to Nymphomaniac, with the hooplah surrounding the film and the almost laughable marketing campaign that has been lampooned by basically every major film critic, it was a highly anticipated cinematic romp, no pun intended. Ok puns are going to be unavoidable here so just bear with me. 

The film concerns a woman named Joe who has been found beaten in an alley way by Stellan Skarsgård, an intellectual asexual who nurses her back to health while she tells him all about her sordid background as a nymphomaniac. The only difference is that she was a nymphomaniac out of lust not out of need. You see? She wants sex because she fucking wants it bitches, not because it's something she can't control. It's like saying you're an alcoholic because you're thirsty. 

Although this looks like a still from your regular run-of-the-mill porn, it's actually one of the more funny scenes in the film, if not one of the most sexually explicit. Hard to combine the two.

Basically, though Von Trier muse Charlotte Gainsbourg is first billed and in every advert for the film, most of the film concerns her in her younger state, played brilliantly and fearlessly in her debut performance by Stacey Martin. The biggest novelty in this film is the endless parade of surprising supporting players, mainly those of Shia Lebeouf and Jamie Bell. This is where Von Trier really shines as a director because he basically takes a chance on seemingly banal and wasteful actors and transforms them into unbelievably vivid performers. It's also probably Uma Thurman's best role since she was Mia Wallace even though she's on screen for less than 10 minutes. He also does a little tribute to one of his own films Antichrist (2009) shhhhh! I think it's supposed to be a secret. 

Sexually speaking it's actually one of the more easy films to digest aesthetically. I'd much rather watch Shia and Stacey have un-simulated animalistic intercourse than watch some Nicholas Sparks inspired bullshit where Ryan Gosling kisses the back of some girl's neck behind some curtains with a violin playing in the distance, and the rest we are meant to imagine for ourselves. I think Von Trier touches on a very important aspect of sex that we try to ignore as movie-goers. We always want to imagine it as beautiful, electric, and magical; an act that fulfills us, always with love. 

This is Shia's epic apology for well...everything that preceded this film. He's actually a damn good actor. I'm going to burn in hell for saying that. Film buff hell. Where they only show Michael Bay films and demons screeching Tarantino's praises constantly taunt you. 

Because we as the movie-goer and as actual human beings all lack that basically. The universal truth about sex is that it's AWKWARD. It's strange, painful, (not in the way that you think, you perv), unfulfilling, and most of the time lacking what is constantly referred in the film as 'the secret ingredient'; love. Sex is a constant state of learning. Learning what we like, what others like, what we absolutely need and what we absolutely won't ever do. It's a self-discovery more cerebral than we think, and Von Trier manages to capture this by equating it to almost a Zizekian philosophical study in this film, not to say that it's pretentious in the least. There's a beautiful scene where Skarsgård explains the beauty of Bach's compositions by three elements, which Joe (Gainsbourg) equates to three types of lovers that when combined create a 'beautiful tune'. Speaking of which, the use of music is absolutely brilliant in this film. Instead of a prolonged Wagner score (again, ahem...Nazi), that he usually uses, it's a total mix up of some of the most iconic classical music pieces out there. My favorite is when (spoiler alert) Joe is forced to go into sexual-addiction rehab, she has to get rid of anything that reminds her of sex or anything that turns her on. In the background is playing the first movement of Mozart's requiem, as if she's preparing for death, or that a piece of her is dying. It's not exactly subtle, but it's tongue in cheek. (Another pun!). 

Gainsbourg must either really really love working with Von Trier or has some kind of debt that has yet to be repaid because I don't know of any other actress who is able and willing to put herself through as much as she has, and not just in this one film. 

Now, I'm of the belief that Von Trier has probably had sex maybe three times in his life, and perhaps that is why he needed to make Nymphomaniac. It reminds me of a review that I read from Roger Ebert talking about the Peter Greenway film; 8 1/2 Women (2001) where a father and son create a private harem being inspired by the Fellini film, 8 1/2 (1963). He begged the question; how many directors make films about their unspoken sexual fantasies, and the answer is...all of them. Von Trier just took it a step further...as he tends to. And the ending is I mean, absolutely brilliant, and the best exhaltation of a woman's plight I've ever seen. I can't give away more than that, but it's brilliantly perfect. Anyway, I liked it. I recommend it, but again. Approach with caution.

Trailer below:

You Don't Have to be NC-17 to Be Bought By Criterion

Thank you von Trier, we all so desperately need to see this, in the longest take ever known to man kind, and if it's not definitely feels that way.

So my friend sent me this interesting link up on the Criterion website about the grossest films in its roster of otherwise respectable and timeless cinematic triumphs. So like right next to The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir) you can buy a copy of Antichrist (Lars von Trier) where the cover is Willem Defoe doing Charlotte Gainsburg up against a tree of protruding limbs. So hot. Here's the list if you're interested and haven't eaten anything this morning yet. Criterions Greatest Gross Outs.

Now, why should Criterion be so high and mighty? I mean they bought films like Armageddon (1999) and The Rock (1996) for eff's sake, but I will say this, they do own a few in their catalog that would make even the person with the strongest stomach squirm in their seat. Antichrist (2009) is a perfect example of this. Now, if I was to eat an egg salad sandwich that had been siting in a hot car that I purchased and the worst deli in New York City and then did 18 jumping jacks, I'm still not exactly prone to vomit. It's rather difficult for me? TMI? Deal with it. But not even at the end, in the MIDDLE of this film, I had to excuse myself out of the theater to blow chunks. And I will never trust Von Trier again. I mean, I had to take a klonopin just so I could watch Melancholia (2011) because I was so nervous. And I honestly have no idea why Criterion would invest in such crap. Even by pretentious euro-standards Antichrist is terrible. And yet that's not why I lost my lunch that day. I just couldn't deal with the fact that von Trier saw the need to assault every one of my senses until I felt like I couldn't breath. It's like 'how far can I go with this? I don't want people just to walk out in anger, I want them to be heaving and dialing the emergency room. Get Willem Dafoe on the phone.' 

Just one of the NSFW scenes from Caligula (1979), though seemingly alright on the surface, you should know that the girl in this scene is playing Caligula's (Malcolm McDowell's) SISTER Drusilla.

The other films all totally deserve to be up there, but I've seen way worse that Criterion refuses to touch. Dino De Laurentis' Caligula (1979) is a perfect example, also any work by Alejandro Jodorowsky. Watch The Holy Mountain (1973), I dare you. I double dog dare you. People think you need to be within a horror genre and sub-genre of blood and guts to be seriously offensive to all the senses, but it's not true. You just have to put people into very uncomfortable situations. Also, you have to be pretty innovative and an ancient Roman contraption that slices off peoples heads because of a shredding like locomotive on it's bottom layer can do so when you bury people with just their heads sticking out is pretty innovative. It's just one out of many beyond disgusting and yet fascinating films in Caligula (1979) so don't fret I didn't give too much away.

Eyes Without a Face (1960) is actually pretty terrifying in that French solipsistic type way, and that's not to mention the amount of gore that is involved in the surgery scenes, even in black and white it's more visceral than your average slasher film.

I guess what I'm saying is that the disgusting is also innovative, and doesn't have to be 'horrific'. If you look at another film on the list; George Fanju's Eyes Without a Face (1960) it's absolutely captivating. Probably because it's based on actual events and it's directed brilliantly. What is it about? Exactly that. This girl is born without a face, just a pair of beautiful big blue eyes, and her father, the ever present surgeon experimentation extraordinaire keeps kidnapping young girls so that he can take off their faces and try sewing them unto his daughters, and womp womp, none ever really work. And this was decades before 'it rubs the lotion on it's skin' so it was pretty innovative. Also, it's French, so, points there. Anyway, I would say if you're have a thick skin watch some of these films, they are in the Criterion roster for a reason, most of them (I said MOST) are not gross because of a sexual content that is displeasing....of course that's MOST again, people. But yeah, throw on some Cronenberg and have a barf bag ready just in case. Maybe you'll be richer for the experience mentally even if your stomach will empty.

Some trailers below: