Film Review: Lars Von Trier's "Nymphomaniac Volume Two"

Hello everyone!

Last week I posted a generally favorable review of the first 'volume' of Danish director Lars Von Trier's latest film opus "Nymphomaniac". I finally caught Volume Two last night On Demand. And while I realize that Volumes 1 & 2 comprise one film (like, for example, Quentin Tarentino's "Kill Bill" Parts One and Two"), given the episodic structure of their presentation and the fact that several days passed between my viewings of the two parts,  it is hard to review them as one cohesive whole.

While I admired Volume One's fearless audacity, Volume Two struck me as almost banal, if not downright clinical, in its determination to shock. Yes, Joe the Nymphomaniac's story takes a much darker turn in the second film. As Volume One ended, Joe confessed that she had lost the ability to feel anything sexual or otherwise. Volume Two picks up right where the previous film left off with Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) visiting I guess what one might call a sex therapist known merely by the initial K (played with stony reticence by Jamie Bell). K's therapy, if it can be called that, comprises of little more than pain and humiliation...and from the viewer's standpoint, it is painful to watch.

Nothing seems to work for Joe. She is driven mad by her nymphomania. It threatens everything that she might consider good in her life -- specifically, her husband Jerome (Shia Le Boeuf) and the child she has with him. She can't even enjoy sex anymore and her body seems to be breaking down. (It's pretty gross actually).

In the film's final chapter, she is employed by a shady gentleman played by Willem Dafoe who uses her to force delinquent insurance account holders to pay up using fear and sexual humiliation. Joe becomes enamored with a young girl named B whom she seems to fall in love with while training the girl as her apprentice. Suffice to say that nothing here ends well.

As before, the three 'chapters' that make up Volume Two are strung together with scenes of Joe narrating her story to Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard) after he has 'rescued' her from the alley outside his house where she had been brutally beaten. We see the beating, its perpetrator, and while I have a feeling we are supposed to be surprised or feel at least some degree of sympathy for Joe, like Joe herself I suppose, by this point in the film I was relatively numb to it.

And yes there is much discussion toward the end of what it all means and what it says about a woman's place in society and the hypocrisy that men can be these primal sexual beings but when women act on their sexuality they are branded as essentially deviant monsters and yes this is a compelling argument and a compelling subject for a film. Unfortunately, because the character of Joe is portrayed as being somewhat empty from the start, we never really feel for her. And while Volume One can be interpreted I suppose as a celebration of sex, Volume Two is quite the opposite, but it is so relentlessly grim that it fails to have much effect.

Yes, one day I may take a Saturday afternoon and watch Volumes One and Two back-to-back as a single viewing experience. I think the film deserves it. And while there is much to admire here -- particularly in Volume One -- I think Mr. Von Trier may have made a more compelling case for his thesis if we were given a central character that allowed the audience to feel at least something for her. As portrayed by Stacy Martin and Charlotte Gainsbourg, Joe inspires little emotion from us because she  displays so little emotion herself.

Film Review: Lars Von Trier's "Nymphomaniac, Volume One"

Hello everyone!

What can I say about Danish director Lars Von Trier's latest magnum opus that hasn't already been said? Probably nothing but I'll give you all my take on it anyway.

For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Lars Von Trier is one of those European filmmakers who seems to thrive on provocation. Every one of his films -- and there are a handful -- is hailed as "an event". Two years ago in this blog, I reviewed his film "Melancholia" and was justifiably, I believe, blown away by it. "Nymphomaniac, Volume One" (soon to be followed by Volume Two later this week) doesn't have the narrative or atmospheric power of "Melancholia", but it is nonetheless strangely effective in a rather blank sort of way, if that makes any sense at all.

In brief, a middle-aged woman named Joe (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg in later life and Stacy Martin as a young woman) is seen lying in an alley one rainy/snowy London night. She has apparently been beaten, though by whom -- at least by the end of Volume One -- we don't know. Joe is 'rescued' by a man named Seligman (played by Stellan Skarsgard) who invites her into his home and allows her to recuperate there in exchange, it would seem, for her relating her life's story to him.

Joe is the nymphomaniac of the title. The film is a flashback starting with Joe as a young girl doted on by her kindly scientist father (an understated Christian Slater) and a cold unfeeling mother (Connie Nielsen). When Joe is fifteen she determines to lose her virginity to an older guy in her town -- whom we later come to know as Jerome (a rather disarming Shia La Boeuf) -- which is then followed by a revolving door of more-or-less nameless lovers interspersed with rather windy and obscure reflections on everything from fly fishing to Bach to delirium tremens, all of which we are led to believe have correlations to Joe's nymphomania. Jerome returns and Joe realizes that she loves him even though this goes against her resolve never to mix sex with love. As she puts it, "love is nothing more than lust mixed with jealousy."

Volume One concludes with Joe -- having witnessed her father's painful death from an unnamed cancer and undergone one of the most awkward and flat-out hilarious confrontations with one of her lover's wives -- Mrs. H (a fantastic and fantastically campy Uma Thurman) -- reuniting with Jerome only to realize she can't "feel anything" down there. Frankly, I'm not surprised.

I didn't feel anything either. With the exception of Ms. Thurman, there's an element of catatonia in every performance -- especially from Stacy Martin as the young Joe who seems unable to register any facial expression whatsoever even in the throes of passion. And yet...and yet I couldn't help but be consistently intrigued. The film is actually really rather funny at times because everything is so deadly in earnest. And the sex? Yeah, there's a fair bit but--at least in Volume One--it's rather run-of-the-mill, nothing that anyone can't or hasn't already seen on the Internet.

No, this isn't a film for everyone and no, I can't say whether I'd really recommend it, but I kind of liked it and am looking forward to seeing Volume Two this weekend. The sex is the least interesting aspect of this story. What intrigues -- as always intrigues with a Von Trier film -- is the spirited audacity of the filmmaking. Mr. Von Trier may not have anything profound to say, but he keeps you looking for profundity.