Nymphomaniac: Volume One

2 out of 4 Stars

Controversial. Sadistic. Hair-raising. Intense. These are some of the words to describe Lars Von Trier's new film, Nymphomaniac: Volume One. Von Trier's full cut of the movie was so long (four hours) that he had split it into two parts as Tarantino did with Kill Bill. Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is found lying on the snow-covered streets and is saved by Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard), a fly-fishing intellectual who listens to Joe tell him how she ended up on the streets.


Joe's story is an intense, no holds bar description of her sex life with tales of having her virginity being taken by Jerome, a moped-driving twenty-something (Shia LaBoeuf, with a terrible British accent), and competing over a bag of chocolates with her friend by seeing which one has the most sex on a train. As she reaches adulthood, Joe's sexual conquests grow from promiscuous to compulsive as she sees the destruction of one man's married life as his wife (An unforgettable Uma Thurman) confronts Joe in her apartment. The film concludes with a chilling cliffhanger that will leave you shocked, yet curious, over how Joe ended up in the warm embrace of Seligman.

Lars Von Trier once said that "films should be like a rock in a shoe." Von Trier's films are like rocks and shards of glass in a shoe with no socks on, whether it is the suspenseful and grueling Antichrist
  or his audacious musical, Dancer in the Dark. Von Trier's Nymphomaniac is of no exception; he succeeds in shocking you with intense imagery, yet leaves you scratching your head over the age old question about filmmakers of his caliber: is the film made to shock us for the sake of being shocked, or is there an underlying message that is overshadowed by the grueling imagery?

In the sake of Von Trier's Nymphomania, it is a film that tries to look at the ethical nature of sexual compulsion in the same vein as Steve McQueen's Shame or Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, yet manages to leave you squirming and turning away from images that make the film anything but sexy. Von Trier's perspective is a heavy handed mix of Freud and Kinsey mixed with a blend of earthy, yet uncomfortable, scenes that are reminiscent of Pasolini. The film is unforgettable, but only from when it is being seen at face value. In terms of the story, it is a feeble attempt of being philosophical as Terrence Malick and overly pretentious as if Von Trier was trying to remake I Am Curious (Yellow).