Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013)
Directed by Lars von Trier
A man named Seligman finds a fainted wounded woman in an alley and he brings her home. She tells him that her name is Joe and that she is nymphomaniac. Joe tells her life and sexual experiences with hundreds of men since she was a young teenager while Seligman tells about his hobbies, such as fly fishing, reading about Fibonacci numbers or listening to organ music.
41 connections found
View:
41 films that influenced Nymphomaniac: Vol. I
What critics say influenced Nymphomaniac: Vol. I
In returning to sources (Tarkovsky is referenced multiple times throughout, one chapter title included), examining the self (a particularly on-the-nose Antichrist callback emerges; maybe as a joke, maybe not) and making convergences (yet another image of a Gainsbourg character lying in a field makes way for a pronounced Stalker homage), a genuine softness and delicacy — melancholy, one might say — runs through the current of sex and recklessness.
After all, he is a Danish arthouse director in his late 50s, working on relatively modest budgets while tackling the biggest themes imaginable - the end of the world in Melancholia (2011), the origins of evil in Antichrist (2009), and, now, in his two Nymphomaniac films, the nature of female sexuality.
While Gainsbourg – the daughter of another great sexual and artistic provocateur: the Gallic icon Serge Gainsbourg – may be initially perceived as another in von Trier’s long line of damaged female characters (see the director’s Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, and Antichrist for reference), it’s her character’s younger self, played with wide-eyed coquettishness by Stacy Martin, who initiates the dirty deeds that make up the main story.
But compared to some of his previous movies (the dreadful “Antichrist”, with its hacked genitals and interminable howling, for example), “Nymphomaniac” hardly plays like von Trier’s big “f*** you”.
Von Trier ("Melancholia," "Antichrist") brings dry humor to the movie's mix of crude language, anatomical close-ups and erudite sexual metaphors: Fly-fishing, Bach fugues and even parallel parking are accompanied by on-screen diagrams and other visual aids.
Now, after the epic misery of Dancer in the Dark, Antichrist and Melancholia , he returns to the mischievous spirit of The Idiots with what is arguably his greatest film so far, a colossal saga of lust and life, a magnum opus that recapitulates everything he has done before, encapsulating major themes, character types and even scenes from previous films, and integrating them into an ambitious, intelligent and vivid work of tremendous depth and breadth.
After all, he is a Danish arthouse director in his late 50s, working on relatively modest budgets while tackling the biggest themes imaginable - the end of the world in Melancholia (2011), the origins of evil in Antichrist (2009), and, now, in his two Nymphomaniac films, the nature of female sexuality.
The end result is a passable yet disappointing effort from von Trier, with the movie's mild success ultimately ensuring that it remains a cut above the majority of his output (ie this is a masterpiece compared to, say, Melancholia).
Von Trier ("Melancholia," "Antichrist") brings dry humor to the movie's mix of crude language, anatomical close-ups and erudite sexual metaphors: Fly-fishing, Bach fugues and even parallel parking are accompanied by on-screen diagrams and other visual aids.
Von Trier throws in a “cunt” here and there to break the gentle mood, but this early segment of the film is mostly soft and wistful in the vein of his Melancholia .
Also in the mix are Antichhrist and Melancholia ’s love of big themes and extremes.
But von Trier constantly sabotages a grander statement, much the same way he torpedoed his apocalyptic previous film Melancholia at Cannes by making ill-advised Hitler references.
While Gainsbourg – the daughter of another great sexual and artistic provocateur: the Gallic icon Serge Gainsbourg – may be initially perceived as another in von Trier’s long line of damaged female characters (see the director’s Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, and Antichrist for reference), it’s her character’s younger self, played with wide-eyed coquettishness by Stacy Martin, who initiates the dirty deeds that make up the main story.
Sure, von Trier has shown glimmers of humor in some of his previous films, mostly of the dark and twisted variety; you have to go all the way back to 1998’s “The Idiots,” or even some scattered moments of “Breaking the Waves” or “Dancer in the Dark.”
Now, after the epic misery of Dancer in the Dark, Antichrist and Melancholia , he returns to the mischievous spirit of The Idiots with what is arguably his greatest film so far, a colossal saga of lust and life, a magnum opus that recapitulates everything he has done before, encapsulating major themes, character types and even scenes from previous films, and integrating them into an ambitious, intelligent and vivid work of tremendous depth and breadth.
In movies like Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, and Dogville, Lars von Trier puts his pure-hearted heroines through almost unimaginable torment, piling misery on top of misery until it’s impossible to believe that they won’t suffer complete mental and physical breakdowns (and sometimes they do).
Nymphomaniac Volume I is possibly the best movie Lars von Trier has made since Dancer in the Dark.
Lurking underneath any commentary one might offer is the disquieting suspicion that the Danish director of such unforgettable films as Dancer in the Dark and Melancholia has already considered these criticisms and has loaded his films, in one way or another, with subtle retorts to each of them.
Even the alleyway, a location that bookends the story, feels unreal and strangely hermetic; with no city noise or traffic sounds in the distance, it recalls Von Trier's chalk-outline town in Dogville .
I won’t go as far as saying that von Trier has made a comedy here, but in the same way that his shattering Dogville was often arch and self-aware, Nymphomaniac Vol.
Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier has found all sorts of ways to provoke moviegoers in the past — with metal spikes in Antichrist , by ignoring narrative conventions in Dogville, by presenting depression as the only reasonable reaction to the world as we know it — and then destroying that world — in Melancholia.
In movies like Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, and Dogville, Lars von Trier puts his pure-hearted heroines through almost unimaginable torment, piling misery on top of misery until it’s impossible to believe that they won’t suffer complete mental and physical breakdowns (and sometimes they do).
In his distinctive career, with films such as The Idiots (1998), Dogville (2003) and Melancholia (2011) he pushes boundaries and buttons and breaks rules and new ground.
Guess Lars isn’t so removed from the man who made Dogville and everything before it.
While Gainsbourg – the daughter of another great sexual and artistic provocateur: the Gallic icon Serge Gainsbourg – may be initially perceived as another in von Trier’s long line of damaged female characters (see the director’s Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, and Antichrist for reference), it’s her character’s younger self, played with wide-eyed coquettishness by Stacy Martin, who initiates the dirty deeds that make up the main story.
Sure, von Trier has shown glimmers of humor in some of his previous films, mostly of the dark and twisted variety; you have to go all the way back to 1998’s “The Idiots,” or even some scattered moments of “Breaking the Waves” or “Dancer in the Dark.”
In movies like Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, and Dogville, Lars von Trier puts his pure-hearted heroines through almost unimaginable torment, piling misery on top of misery until it’s impossible to believe that they won’t suffer complete mental and physical breakdowns (and sometimes they do).
Leave it to provocateur writer/director Lars von Trier ("Breaking the Waves," "Antichrist") to wrap a philosophy on nature and science vs. love and religion in headline grabbing sensationalism.
Written and directed by the always purposely controversial Lars von Trier (“Breaking the Waves,” “Antichrist,” “Melancholia”), “Vol.
Going back as far as Breaking the Waves, he has always been willing to delve into what he sees as the ineffable mysteries of human sexuality, and female sexuality in particular, with a stress on the way sexuality and crippling depression can overlap.
The risk-taking raconteur behind such bruising beauties as 2003's Dogville, 1996's Breaking the Waves (out this month on Blu-ray from Criterion and reviewed here ) and 1991's Zentropa (aka Europa) hasn't engaged my senses in years, and this pattern follows suit with the limp-wristed one-two punch of Nymphomaniac: Volume I and Nymphomaniac: Volume II.
From beautiful and stylish films like "Europa" or "Melancholia" to stark and sombre tales of hope and redemption like " Breaking the Waves " or " Dancer in the Dark ," Von Trier has long crafted films that are at once shattering and inviting, with narratives appearing distant, brutal and calculating, yet with a heart that's often surprisingly sweet.
Sure, von Trier has shown glimmers of humor in some of his previous films, mostly of the dark and twisted variety; you have to go all the way back to 1998’s “The Idiots,” or even some scattered moments of “Breaking the Waves” or “Dancer in the Dark.”
In his distinctive career, with films such as The Idiots (1998), Dogville (2003) and Melancholia (2011) he pushes boundaries and buttons and breaks rules and new ground.
Yet the most potent streak of autobiography can be found in his 1998 film The Idiots , the second and strongest Dogme 95 production.
Throughout, the consummate agent provoc-auteur remains torn between an angsty interest in self-obliteration and an adolescent obsession with the illusory mechanics of hardcore – a fetish that dates back to the days of The Idiots , and which has made porn doubles and prosthetic genitals a recurrent element of his arthouse palette.
In the nearly two decades since von Trier unveiled the Dogma 95 manifesto, his work has become increasingly provocative, from integrating real sex in “The Idiots” to figuratively shaking his fist at God with “Antichrist.”
He’s made two of three films in his “American Trilogy” (“Dogville,” “Manderlay”) despite never visiting these shores and the apocalyptic science in “Melancholia” is, by his own admission, unrealistic.
Von Trier’s previous three internationally distributed efforts - Melancholia, Antichrist, and Manderlay - have all fallen victim to von Trier’s artistic self-indulgence.
Given the ineffectiveness of such recent Lars von Trier efforts as Dogville, Antichrist, and Manderlay, Nymph()maniac: Vol. 1 can't help but come off as a comparatively (and refreshingly) mainstream endeavor that fares much, much better than one might've anticipated - although it's ultimately clear that both Nymph()maniac: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 could (and should) have been compressed into one streamlined film (ie von Trier isn't, despite his best efforts, able to keep things interesting for the cumulative running time of over four hours).
In returning to sources (Tarkovsky is referenced multiple times throughout, one chapter title included), examining the self (a particularly on-the-nose Antichrist callback emerges; maybe as a joke, maybe not) and making convergences (yet another image of a Gainsbourg character lying in a field makes way for a pronounced Stalker homage), a genuine softness and delicacy — melancholy, one might say — runs through the current of sex and recklessness.
He even throws in a few references to Tarkovsky’s most austere film, Andrei Rublev (about a medieval Russian icon painter), to underline his seriousness.
Still, the philosophical feminist precedent to beat is still Agnès Varda’s chilling, scorchingly defiant Vagabond (1985), which limns an antisocial odyssey to the edge of extinction without resorting to semi-porn.
Also lurking in the artistic weeds—notably a home invasion—are quiet references to Stanley Kubrick’s masterful (and also classical-rich) A Clockwork Orange (cross-reference below).
These and other flashes of whimsy help enliven what would otherwise be a dreary procession of what A Clockwork Orange’s priapic Alex, a kindred spirit, called “the old in-out, in-out.”
No film called Nymphomaniac will struggle to find an audience but viewers should remember the example of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut .
There’s also industrial shock-rock from Rammstein, Germany’s malevolent answer to Metallica, and the Shostakovich waltz from Stanley Kubrick’s chilly-sexy “Eyes Wide Shut.”
Advertisement
As the two continue to talk, such concepts as 'love equals lust plus jealousy' are introduced, especially when Joe continues to run into Jerome (in one instance recalling Steven Shainberg's S&M romance "Secretary") and finds herself 'in love.' Seligman is astounded by Joe's answer to his question about which hand's nails she cuts first, his measure of whether a person is light-hearted or serious.
The entire enterprise has a whiff of homage to the Golden Age of Arty Porn, the ’70s, when pretentious life narrations interrupted the assorted exotic sexual encounters of “Emmanuelle” or “The Story of O.” It’s “The Story of Joe.”
Pitched somewhere between the metaphysical porno of Gerard Damiano's The Devil in Miss Jones and the softcore breast-beating of Just Jaeckin's The Story of O , Von Trier's still unspooling magnum opus is an exhausting orgy of heady ideas and groiny spectacle that veers wildly between the profound, the comic and the ridiculous – not always intentionally (a dopey shaggy-dog punchline almost proves its undoing).
Gainsbourg narrates in a flat, uninflected monotone; Martin, during the act, is usually staring blandly into space, like Jane Fonda in "Klute."
The whole temperature of a film can be heavily influenced, even determined, by the heat a particular actress provides, so one can only wonder what Nymphomaniac would have been like had von Trier sought and found an equivalent of, say, Julie Christie in Billy Liar, Eva Green in The Dreamers or Jennifer Lawrence in almost anything.
Advertisement
In the 2004 The Five Obstructions, Von Trier challenged director Jorgen Leth to remake his 1967 film The Perfect Human five times, each time with a different arbitrary obstacle.
In the 2004 The Five Obstructions, Von Trier challenged director Jorgen Leth to remake his 1967 film The Perfect Human five times, each time with a different arbitrary obstacle.
As if taking on a version of the challenges he posed to filmmaker Jørgen Leth in The Five Obstructions, von Trier makes each segment distinct, whether shooting one in black and white, or confining the action of another almost entirely to a single scene and space.
One does not get the impression that Von Trier is unaware of the Easy Rider echo; quite the opposite, in fact.