If you ever wondered how sex addiction was exactly like fly fishing – and I know you have – then Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac was clearly made for you. Fortunately it was not ONLY made for you. That’s something of a limited demographic, even for an art house film about sexual obsession, loneliness and how distracting it is to watch Shia LaBeouf in a movie nowadays.
Writer/director Lars Von Trier never gets enough credit for the enormous amounts of sympathy he has for his desperate heroines. Perhaps because he’s so intent on martyring them in the end, no one appreciates just how much he loves them. They live on the outskirts of sanity, the fringes of the social spectrum, and have simple desires that are too often punished in a complex, abusive world. Nymphomaniac, Part 1 rolls around in that sympathy, ecstatic in its understanding of a woman who puts orgasmic release ahead of deeper emotional relationships, and finds for her a sympathetic, seemingly asexual ear attached to the form of a lonely fly fisherman who responds to her story with the only correlations he knows. If nymphomania can be so succinctly compared to artistic and soulful pursuits, perhaps there’s nothing really wrong with it.
Or perhaps there really is. Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1 concludes in a devastating emotional cliffhanger that might very well lead the sequel, due in just a few short weeks, into uglier directions. But for now we are content to watch as Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the sex addict of the title, relates her episodic life story to Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard), the fly fisherman, in an apparent attempt to make him judge her. His steadfast refusal to put her on the hook, so to speak, transforms Nymphomaniac (Vol. 1, at least), into a psychosexual version of Ernst Lubitsch’s Heaven Can Wait, in which Don Ameche desperately tries to convince the devil to let him into Hell, only for the Devil to forgive him because life is complicated and he tried his best.
But Skarsgard is not the devil (as far as we know, but Vol. 2 is coming), and Gainsbourg has genuine skeletons in her closet. Although her early days of prepubescent masturbation and teenaged years of seducing countless strangers are easily written off as youthful self-exploration, Von Trier eventually allows the consequences to sink in. Gainsbourg (played at younger ages by Stacy Martin) may be seeking self-gratification, but then so is everyone who fucks her, and they do reap what they sow. The difference of course is that they’re actually trying to connect with our heroine, or temporarily escape from their more complex relationships with other women. One could argue that any betrayals or comeuppances are entirely the men’s fault, but perhaps what really eats at Joe is one simple fact: that she doesn’t care.
Seligman pokes holes in Joe’s story, noting her romanticized interpretation of her first sexual partner, Jerome (Shia LaBeouf, slightly distracting in a sensualized role), but the first part of the Nymphomaniac saga is all about a life filled with lust but devoid of passion, with a conclusion that proves that Joe’s lifestyle must eventually take some form of toll. But thus far, judgment is mercifully reserved. Nymphomanic: Vol. 1 never feels clinical – Von Trier’s poetic cinematography and death metal theme song are too forceful for that – but it does live somewhere on the edge of therapy. We get to know someone who hates themselves for living a life that’s too interesting to be upset about, at least from the outside looking in, and she is fascinating and beautiful and we really hope nothing bad happens to her.
Nymphomaniac: Vol. 2 is coming, and I am scared for Joe. But I am compelled to see this through. I need the release.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
