Review: Nymphomaniac Vol. 1

Charlotte Gainsbourg stars as Joe, first seen bruised and battered in an alley, before a quiet-natured middle-aged man (Stellan Skarsgaard) takes her in. While she heals, she tells the rather dry and dull man her life story. Joe (played as a young woman by Stacy Martin) is a nymphomaniac who became sexually promiscuous at a very early age, and seems to think that this makes her all very special and profound. One begs to differ. Christian Slater and Shia LaBeouf (both attempting to sport English accents) appear in flashbacks as, respectfully, Joe’s rather gentle father and the man who not only takes Joe’s virginity as a teenager, but later ends up her employer. Connie Nielsen appears briefly as Joe’s mum, and Uma Thurman plays the pissed off wife of one of Joe’s conquests.

 

The only reason this 2013 Lars von Trier piece of crap doesn’t get a lower rating is because “Vol 2” is even worse. I’m neither a fan of Mr. von Trier nor the Dogme movement of pretentious trash and really ugly handheld cinematography (No idea if this film itself really comes under that strict movement, however), but even fans have to admit that this is trash unconvincingly trying to dress itself up as art. And just an all-round fucking awful movie. You can tell the film is pretentious because the main character is the only woman in the entire world who refers to her genitalia by the ‘c-word’. Oooh, how daring! She’s saying a naughty word! Please. No self-respecting woman would refer to that part of the anatomy in such a crude way. Actually you can tell it’s pretentious from the very beginning because we start with a black screen with no sound for way too long, followed by Stellan Skarsgaard walking along a street with German heavy metal playing in the background. Why? Because Lars von Trier. Kudos, though, to Mr. von Trier for hiring a cameraman who doesn’t suffer from Parkinson’s for a change. The film almost looks normal. Meanwhile, Christian Slater turns up in flashbacks with an uncomfortable English accent to play Charlotte Gainsbourg’s nature-loving doctor father (!). Why? You guessed it, because Lars von Trier. Same goes for Shia La Beouf and his even shakier English accent (Playing a character who may very well be more than one character in fact). I was kinda hoping for the paper bag over his head, to be honest. Bit disappointed by that one.

 

Mr. von Trier’s little visual jokes are juvenile and unfunny, and I have no idea what the point of any of this is, or why anyone would be attracted to the material in order to star in this. It’s sleazy trash without the honesty to present itself as such. Instead, von Trier tries to convince us it’s high art. That makes it the very worst kind of film, if you ask me. I mean let’s face it, anyone with half a brain can see that this is basically a modern day “Emmanuelle” film with darker and more disturbing sex, and a lot of pretentious, half-arsed sexual psychobabble (Well, we got that in the “Emmanuelle” series too, admittedly). There’s absolutely no realism whatsoever to the dialogue Gainsbourg and Stellan Skarsgaard have in their scenes here (Classical music, fly-fishing, Fibonacci numbers, and Gainsbourg prattling on about her promiscuity like it actually means something worth a damn). It’s clearly and distractingly written and unnatural. 30 minutes in and I was scratching my head wondering how in the hell they were gonna get another volume out of this simplistic, one-note film. I mean, we get it, OK? She’s a nymphomaniac. Good. Fine. So? It’s not profound, artistic or even interesting.

 

This is a botched Russ Meyer titty flick (the visual ‘gags’ in particular remind me of a poor Russ Meyer imitation). At least ‘ol Russ was honest and up front about what kind of flick you were gonna get, and rarely tried for anything loftier than that (Nor was he much interested in anything below the waist, but that’s a whole other story). Mr. von Trier can’t even get the sex right, it’s boring and clinical, and before you try and tell me that von Trier isn’t trying to make a porno or anything, bear in mind we get a bunch of still photos of penises, so let’s not call him David Fucking Lean, OK? Even if the film isn’t titillating it’s still far too needlessly graphic to be considered anything other than a pretentious ‘dirty movie’ (And that’s not a derisive attitude towards porn on my part, by the way. Porn’s perfectly fine by me, I prefer more mainstream cinema, but each to their own). It’s graphic (but not as ‘real’ as it looks. Prosthetics, CGI, and body doubles were used. It looks convincing, though) but lacking in any passion or eroticism whatsoever. This is just pretentious rubbish, but coming from von Trier I can’t even get mad about it. He already threw “Dancer in the Dark” at us. Nothing can hurt me after that dreadful effort (I’ll at least concede that my anger towards “The Idiots” might say more about me being disabled than any merit the film itself might have).

 

Stellan Skarsgaard is the only one who escapes with any dignity, but a) His role is a boring observant one, and b) He loses his dignity in “Vol. 2”, unfortunately. Look, if von Trier were honestly aiming for something artistic here, why does he need to use graphic unsimulated sex to get his points across? He doesn’t. Because he’s not. I wasn’t remotely offended by anything in this film, but this has about as much artistic merit as your run of the mill porno and less than half the fun. I mean, von Trier is not genuinely examining this subject the same way Steve McQueen examined sex addiction in “Shame” (whatever I may have thought about that film’s quality, it was certainly a serious-minded enterprise). He’s basically dicking around like a naughty school boy and then gussying it up with a wannabe arthouse sheen. I better stop, I need to save some of this scorn for the second one (It’s really one long film split into two. God help you if you had to watch the whole thing all in one sitting. I pity you), which is even worse. Oh let me count the ways…

 

Rating: D