To say this movie feels like home would be to expose a side of my identity that I try very hard to keep to myself, but for the sake of this review that's what I'd like to say. Nymphomaniac fits neatly into the genre of extreme film, a genre I'm not sure even exists in the eyes of the average movie-goer. To qualify as extreme a film has to test the boundaries of social acceptability and it can do this in several ways. The film can be extremely violent or extremely sexual or extremely disturbing, the bottom line being that it has to shock you, has to desensitize you in some way. I've always been interested in counter-culture, sub-culture, artistic expressions of rebellion, so it was natural for me to get into this darker side of film.
Early on in my exploration of extreme film I happened upon Lars von Trier's The Idiots. It was earth-shattering for me at the time. Not only was it shocking in its subject matter but the way it was shot was a testament to counter-culture, the mainstream film culture being dominated by Hollywood's focus on post-production polish. The Idiots was filmed according to a strict set of rules known as the Dogme 95 Manifesto. These rules included only on-scene shooting with no props or artificial sets, only hand-held camera work, no added music or sound effects, no special lighting other than what is in the natural shooting environment, etc. Even the subject matter was restricted to prevent any instances of superficial action, i.e. unrealistic car chases or gun battles. After seeing The Idiots I tracked down every Lars von Trier film I could find and kept close attention to his future plans.
When I heard news that he was embarking on a two part project called Nymphomaniac I knew it was going to be something special. Von Trier has always woven sexuality into his work and it was obvious that it was a subject he enjoyed exploring. This would be the unlimited expansion of that theme, a study of human sexuality, the ugly and the beautiful, the domination and submission, the strength and fragility of physical relationships.
The film begins when an unwitting man finds a woman unconscious in a dark alley obviously the victim of physical violence. He asks if she needs an ambulance and she insists that she doesn't. The man takes her to his apartment and as he helps her into the bed of a spare room to convalesce she embarks on the telling of her life story as a nymphomaniac with the ultimate purpose of explaining why she was beaten and left for dead.
This is a perfect setup for such a subject, especially considering the man is a self-proclaimed asexual. As she describes her life of pure sexual addiction the man listens patiently, offering non-sexual analogies to give her descriptions a sort of universal context. There are moments of cold reflection, unflinching and fearless, moments of human frailty, delicately emotional. But most importantly, the film avoids being sensational, it is shocking without attempting to be shocking. The focus is on a real human's experiences in life and never does it feel artificial.
The film isn't perfect though and I've narrowed my criticism down to one issue. Lars von Trier's casting choices are usually non-american actors, being a non-american filmmaker. For this film he made two strange choices, Christian Slater and Shia Labeouf. Both of them Hollywood veterans and both of them ultimately disappointing. They attempt English accents and wind up sounding awkward delivering Von Trier's thoughtful dialog. This isn't a deal breaker though because everyone else, especially the two leads, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Stellan Skarsgard, put on performances of a lifetime.
I know most people will avoid this film, ignore it, dismiss it as smut or perversion, but I can't stress how badly we need films like this in a society of post-Victorian prudes, of post-Catholic abstinence advocates. Sex isn't scary. It is literally the reason we're all here. Sexuality can be strange and awkward, dirty and smelly, but life is often all of those things and it's a choice to not appreciate that. We can choose to explore ourselves and explore each other very intimately and learn from the experience, making our lives fuller, giving us a better understanding of what life is. Or we can keep blindly wandering down the road we're currently on, judging, pointing and sneering, taking the easy, pretty way, where only a very small number of close-minded people will ever find happiness at the expense of the rest of us.
5/5
