Most movies go for the base emotions. You know, scare you, thrill you, make you cry or simply raise your pulse.
Lars von Trier’s film “Nymphomaniac,” on the other hand, is the first film I’ve seen that deliberately wants to make you feel uncomfortable. While it makes for a hard to watch story, it also makes for an interesting one.
The plot revolves around a man named Selignam, played by Stellan Skarsgård, and a woman named Joe, played by Charlotte Gains. Selignam finds Joe badly beaten and takes her inside his house to recover, where she tells Selignam how she came to be there.
The entire movie is nothing more then Joe relating her history as a sex addict, starting from her first sexual awareness as a child to the end of the movie, where she looses track of her many sexual partners. Selignam provides occasional commentary, but for the most part simply listens.
Because 90 percent of the movie happens in flashbacks, there is very little in the way of forward progress. Since every significant event covered in the film already happened years before the film is set leads to a much more relaxed pace, and is enforced by the constant cutaways to the two main leads as Joe briefly stops to talk with her host. This is not to say that the movie is boring – of all the words to describe Joe’s story, ‘boring’ isn’t one of them.
One of the most memorable scenes is toward the end, when Joe sees multiple lovers in a single day. One of her more persistent lovers – only named by a letter, like most of the characters – refuses to leave, so Joe tries to get rid of him by reminding him he has a wife. The man then shortly returns, having left his wife. And then his wife shows up with their kids. The scene goes on when other movies would have stopped, stubbornly ratcheting up the tension and the awkwardness until both become nearly unbearable.
It makes good summary of the whole movie: scenes that would normally cut before we get to the gory details instead revel in them. The sexual acts are either heavily implied or outright graphic, and joyless just about every time. The few scenes that could be erotic are ruined by the context behind them, preventing any possible thrills.
The music is mostly unobtrusive, with one exception: the German heavy metal song that seems to be the film’s theme. It accentuates the uncomfortable feeling by virtue of being woefully out of place every time it’s played. The visuals add a surreal layer to the proceedings, with numbers and figures drifting around the screen. There’s even a lengthy part in black and white.
An all-star cast heads up this film, with big names like Uma Thurman and Christian Slater playing important roles. Shia LaBeouf appears as well; apparently desperate to shed the reputation he’s gotten from such films as “Transformers” by acting in a serious role. His accent’s terrible, but the performance itself is good.
This is only the first part of a much longer movie – the second part of “Nymphomania” released just recently. It’s a hard movie to watch, and on top of that it’s not complete. Those familiar with Lars von Trier’s previous work won’t be surprised, as he’s know for accentuating the negative. But those willing to watch it will see a well-written character story, even if they might want to turn away at some points.
