Lars Von Trier’s Nyphomaniac Vol. I is, unfortunately, disappointing. Perhaps it’s because it comes on the heels of astonishingly profound films like Antichrist and Melancholia. Certainly, the former has been misunderstood as misogynistic propaganda with a load of shock value and the latter has been largely dismissed because of a comment about the Nazi aesthetic being taken well out of context and circulated around the Internet like the second coming of Mein Kampf. But the films are quite genius in the way that they look at the culturally constructed confinements of trauma and depression.
Nymphomaniac Vol 1 promised to be something similar in the way that it looks at sex addiction. Steve McQueen’s Shame did this a few years ago, but it’s use of a male in the main character’s role diminished social expectations. In the end, the Brandon’s (Michael Fassbender) rock bottom is not the hundreds of porn tapes he keeps stashed away or lascivious way that he looks at his sister. Rather, it’s his venture into what amounts to a homosexual brothel. This is seen as his breaking point and what keeps him from his sister’s side when she needs him most. As a point of fact, Sissy (Carey Mulligan in a much overlooked role), his sister, is seen as the weaker of the two.
In Nymphomaniac, Von Trier has the opportunity to examine how his female protagonist’s sex addiction is manipulated by social constructs because she is in a fact a female, labeling herself from the very beginning as a “bad” or “reprehensible” person. As such, Von Trier does play with the notion that sexually adventurous women will always be seen as nymphos because of their gender and the unfortunate double standards to follow them around. At one point, Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) notes that she “constantly used other for [her] own satisfaction,” a point that overlooks the male’s satisfaction in her need to fornicate. All of her encounters seem fine with the random trysts and often try to seek her out again, but she most often declines.
And it’s in her declination that we see another facet of humanity and sexuality: competition. A handful of men throughout the film cheat on their significant others with Joe, but she holds herself accountable for their transgressions because she thinks of the as, for the most part, pawns in her game of conquest. In this respect, it is no wonder why her name is traditionally a male’s.
Within this character, we witness the triple standard of sex object, sexual being, and prudent woman that is cast upon Joe and her gender, but the film, overall, is bogged down with convolutedness. The visual snippets and split screens that Von Trier employs are at times whimsical and offer a much needed dose of levity in an otherwise somber film, but the fishing analogy that is constantly brought up by Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard) is overly pedantic and unnecessary. The explanations and connections between his obsession with fishing and her obsession with sex are obvious and distract from the film’s flow and the Bildungsroman of Joe.
In truth, Seligman is mostly unnecessary. Like Ellen Page’s character in inception, Seligman feels present only to make sure that a) the audience has something to latch onto that is not purely sexual in nature b) the audience hasn’t missed any of the films rather overt metaphors c) to make sure the film isn’t mistaken as a completely pornographic adventure.
Skarsgard is characteristically fine in his performance, as is Gainsbourg whose default stoicism creates a fine amalgam of sexual energy and sociopathy. But the best performance thus far comes from Uma Thurman, the scorned wife of a man silly enough to fall for Joe’s insistence that she “loves him too much.” While Thurman’s character is a bit hyperbolic, she is deliciously and appropriately vengeful. Like Joe, she is in competition, but unfortunately, he character comes to blame Joe for breaking up her family – instead of aiming an equal if not greater amount of vitriol at her unfaithful husband.
Moments like these make Nymphomaniac worth viewing and studying and hopefully Volume 2 will build on this aspect rather than bogging down the narrative with heavy, disruptive exposition.
