Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2014)

Waste of Money.

Too much of everything

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Lars von Trier has done it again,,ie bring psychologically fkd up people into mainstream cinema,,and I thank him for that! Antichrist was fantastic,,and for those patient enough to watch pts 1 & 2 of this odyssey,you will be rewarded with an ending that wraps everything up beautifully. YES there is graphic sex,but without it,it wouldn't have made as much sense,,it's about time that directors treated us as adults,if we can handle graphic violence (which you Americans think is OK) then equally we can deal with viewing something natural to each and every one of us!!! Great movie x

Simply tedious, full of extraordinarily disgusting scenes. Such an ultra-long so-called movie about nonsense, without a particular target or message. Might be useful for perverts. Total waste of time; happy that I paid no money to watch it.

So many people wrote how "disturbed" they were by "this shitty sex movie". I divide them into two groups: 1. First group decided to watch the film because they love sex, porn, and the title "Nymphomaniac" sure sounds like their kind of thing. Then they went to cinema (or Internet), watched it, and were disappointed because "they had to listen to a lot of boring dialogues before there was a sex scene" (to which they could masturbate to if they were alone). Then when a sex scene would finally come, it wasn't as exciting as it "should have been". So they were disturbed at how much this movie didn't fulfill their expectations. And they are right, it didn't. Because it's not a shitty, cheap movie, meant to get them turned on. As unbelievable as it sounds to them, the purpose of both the film and the sex scenes go much deeper. And if only they had bothered to pay a little more attention to the "boring dialogue", perhaps they would have noticed that the meaning of the movie - and the real story - goes on in that conversation. And the sex scenes were not as sexy as they "should have been", according to them, because it's not about turning people on. It's a film for you brain, not your genitals. And that is precisely why people from the group one were disappointed. Good.2. The second group are the people who were "disturbed" because there were too many explicit sex scenes. I have nothing to say about this except: Are you serious??? Have you looked up the definition of the word "nymphomaniac" before you decided to watch it? And again, they missed the purpose because for some reason unknown to me, they were too focused on the "filthy" sex scenes in the film named ~Nymphomaniac~ that they missed to actually watch it. The point is: If you focus on the ~sex~, you won't like this movie, nor get it. Therefore, if you want a cheap turn on, just go watch porn, and let artists like Lars take sex to a different level, a little above the primitive urge. Because the reason Joe was "a horny bitch" is a little different than yours.

Reaching a comprehensive conclusion on the first part of Lars von Trier's "Nymphomaniac" is a grisly yet satisfying exercise. The film is generally refreshingly observationalist, in its taking a step back from what it depicts – from what I can garner, it neither glamorises nor demonises to any great extent the behaviour of the characters within. By the end, the characters have been neither punished nor rewarded for their actions. There is a very cold, empty tonality to von Trier's first Nymphomaniac volume, but this is not a criticism – the life of the film's lead, a middle aged woman who goes by the surely deliberately androgynous name of Joe (Jo), has almost entirely consisted of furrowing about trying to find that next lay with the opposite sex. She has done very little else and, despite living through the latter half of the twentieth century, not to mention possessing a gift for oration, we sense has very little else say on any other subject.The film consists almost entirely of flashback. It is Charlotte Gainsbourg playing present-tense Joe, a woman found beaten and bloodied on the concrete courtyard of an apartment block in an unspecific English locality on a rainy day. Stellan Skarsgård's Seligman, a grey suited monosyllabic neighbour from abroad, finds her en route coming home from the local shop - rather than call for help when she asks him not to, he brings her back to his dwelling so that she may recover and that is when she decides to recount her life hedonistic life-story which will lead us to this very moment.In the past, she is played by new-comer Stacy Martin, whose job it is to bring to life Joe's years of adolescence and young adulthood – one characterised by a radical outlook of anti-marriage; anti-bourgeois and anti-love on top of a demonstrating of just how much of a bohemian hedonist she really is. During this time, she will garner some menial office work; maintain a friendship with her father and have an on-off relationship with boyfriend Jerome (Shia LaBeouf). It is during these scenes that von Trier seems to combine props; attire and other mise-en-scene from the 1960's; 70's and 80's to create a very non-specific era –his shooting of it in Germany is further designed to disorientate us during the viewing.But why was she lying on the concrete, bloodied and bruised, in the first scene? Why is she deciding to tell Seligman her tale in the first place? What, precisely, is Skarsgård in relation to anything at all anyway? These are not questions von Trier answers in Volume One – indeed, they are in a sense irrelevant to the film's nucleus. But then, what of that? It seems to be that, no matter what you are talking about, be it fly-fishing; organ music or something else, you can incorporate philosophies or stances on sex into it – sex is life and life is sex and parallels can be found between the actions of a good fly-fisherman and a woman on the prowl; between the makeup of the specifics of a Johann Sebastian Bach sonata and the way a sex-addict balances their lovers. Correlations and equivalents are everywhere, if only people would just take the time out to look for them...But is this really the end of it? Perhaps one character is actually the figment of the other's imagination: a bored, single and lonely Seligman imagines he meets Joe coming home and concocts a story possessing everything he doesn't have. Moreover, perhaps a concussed Joe is still lying there in the street imagining aid from a stranger. Whatever the case, von Trier essentially allows his audience to fulfil the role of Seligman – someone who listens on in either silent awe or restrained disgust at how Joe had a sexual revelation as a young child with her friend Bea (Sophie Kennedy Clark) and decided to act on it in a way that saw her spend her teenage years as she did.Their dual-dynamic itself opens up several tins of numerous kinds of worms in its basis – the gender imbalance is a pseudo-feminist driven psychoanalytic nightmare: a clear distinction between orator and receiver, it is the woman propelling proceedings but her tale is one of often perpetual sexual humiliation as she lowers herself to playing the whore; the tart; the loser. She has nothing else in life and is one-dimensional – she recounts her experiences for the pleasure of the male, be it Seligman or the member of the audience.While they are Joe's experiences, the entire film seems to be made up of figments of Seligman's imagination: it is he who is picturing Joe in the bathroom; on the train and with on-off boyfriend Jerome – something alluded to when he tries to picture Joe studying geography although apologies for imagining it incorrectly before we carry on again. Then, there is the problem of the unreliable narrator – an issue Seligman himself even raises towards the end when he deliberately stops Joe mid-flow on account of not believing an aspect of the story she is telling. This is an odd and very disorientating moment, wherein Seligman wrestles power off the story-teller and is suddenly in command of what we play witness to.What are we left with when everything is said and done? We certainly come away feeling like we have experienced something – there is a centrepiece which I will not spoil that seems to get stuck in to whether Joe has lived a worthy life: it reaches the conclusion that she has not, for bohemianism and nymphomania is a fatuous, rotten thing which destroys your life and the lives of those around you – lives you did not even know existed. Indifference is a strange reaction to have to the film, but then loving it or hating it is very difficult. I would certainly recommend it, but with reservations.