NYMPHOMANIAC VOLUME 1 and VOLUME 2

Stars: Stacy Martin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Uma Thurman, Willem Dafoe, Mia Goth, Connie Nielsen and Udo Kier.
Writer/Director: Lars von Trier.

Rating: 3.5/5

The most shocking revelation that Danish cinematic agitator Lars von Trier offers up in his provocatively titled Nymphomaniac is that, for much of its exorbitant running time, it is a lot of fun.

Not the fun that mainstream audiences know as ‘fun’; from the extreme close-ups of genitalia to its sado-masochistic beatings, it is unlikely that the recollections of von Trier’s sex addict heroine will be confused with Hollywood’s latest rom-com romp. But there is a playfulness that will surprise the art house crowds that are used to Trier’s darker indulgences of the flesh; those still recovering from ‘the scissor scene’ in Antichrist can rest assured no such horrors manifest here.

Von Trier’s use of a flashback structure results in his most linear narrative in recent memory. After a long opening shot of a dark screen accompanied by the faint trickling of water (evocative enough to audience members primed for hardcore fetishism), the prone body of a bloody woman in a dark alleyway is revealed. Passerby Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard) takes her to his small apartment where he tends her wounds and settles in for the long, Scheherazade-like story of how far the wounded Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) has fallen.

The two actors make for compelling intellectual counterparts and allow von Trier to indulge in some of his most buoyant dialogue. Gainsbourg creates a sympathetic if occasionally chilly and detached protagonist. Her Joe archetypically resembles the sexually liberated lead characters in Catherine Breillat’s film Romance (1999) and Charlotte Roche’s book Wetlands (recently adapted into a film by David Wnendt), for whom existence is defined by a compulsive and profound relationship with their own sexual essence (“I discovered my c**t at age 2,” is how Joe begins the story of her life’s trajectory).

As Joe recounts a life ruled by desire, Seligman draws comparisons to his own compulsions, such as fly-fishing, Bach’s grand works and his study of literary and artistic influences. The director takes full advantage of Seligman’s digressions, unloading an arsenal of visual tricks (chapter headings, split-screens, super-imposed graphics; monochrome) that mostly enhance the storytelling.

In Volume 1, it is newcomer Stacy Martin as Joe aged 15-30ish who is most often called upon to get down and dirty. Martin is suitably nymph-like, a compelling if occasionally blank-faced presence that personifies the ‘girlish seductress’ who can convince a committed husband dashing home because his wife is ovulating to submit to a public fellating. The plotting that binds the two 2 hour episodes involves the fate-filled coupling of Joe and Jerome (Shia Labeouf); for a film whose central character refuses to believe in the false reality of romance, their journey is one filled with cute coincidences and chance meetings.

By Volume 2, Joe and Jerome have sucked and f***ed themselves into a sex addict’s version of domestic bliss; they have had a child whose needs come second to Joe’s. Her life devolves into niche sexual experimentation rather than any derivation of pleasure; brutal bondage sessions (at the hands of Jamie Bell’s S&M master in the film’s most confronting scenes), an ill-judged threesome with two BBDs and a life of crime where her sexual knowledge proves a valuable weapon are all stages of her personal descent.

Christian Slater as Joe’s father and a fierce cameo from Uma Thurman as the spurned wife of one of Joe’s conquests highlight the director’s skill with actors. One senses more may be made of Connie Nielsen as Joe’s ice-cold mother and Willem Dafoe’s baddie in the 5½ hour directors cut (due for release in some territories, including Australia, in late 2014), as their roles here amount to very little.

Despite tackling some of cinema’s most taboo topics, Lars von Trier is working well within traditional film comfort zones. His script reveals Seligman to be an asexual virgin, a reality destined to be confronted within the context of a film called ‘Nymphomaniac’; a gun is randomly introduced, so savvy audiences will know that Chekhov’s narrative observation will be invoked. His script is smart and the images confronting, but it is a far less ambitious or important work than Antichrist or his last love/hate vision, Melancholia.

It is, however, impossible to look away. The great Dane’s study of corrosive sexuality (most importantly, from a female perspective) is bold, engaging and thought provoking. Nymphomaniac is too sex as Leaving Las Vegas was to booze or Requiem For a Dream was to drugs; an insight into addiction that paints a life of false highs and dire lows for sufferers caught in the torment of their disease.