Nymphomaniac: Vol. I Review
By David Kempler
Number One Nymphomaniac
Lars von Trier is certainly a very talented director and someone that is very difficult to compare to anyone else operating in his field. No matter what you think of him, he is a truly unique individual. In his much anticipated "Nymphomaniac: Vol. I", he once again wanders into mostly uncharted waters. If you were expecting something akin to a porno film, you're not that far off.
At its outset, the screen remains dark for a while before revealing a cold and dark evening. The camera wanders until it finds a woman's body lying in an alley. An elderly gentleman (Stellan Skarsgård) finds her, and she's alive. He wants to get her help, but she instead agrees to accompany him back to his home where he serves her a cup of tea, while she lies in a bed, recovering from what appears to be a physical beating. Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) starts to relate her past to him. From that point forward, the film veers back and forth between scenes of her past and her discussion with her new friend.
Considering the title, it is not terribly surprising that Joe is a nymphomaniac and every story she tells revolves around her having sex with just about any man with a pulse. In her stories of her past, Joe is played by Stacy Martin. After every flashback, we return to her discussion with the man who found her in the alleyway. He serves mostly as a sort of psychiatrist, refusing to assign any moral judgments upon her. Instead, he explores the stories with her, without any seeming physical interest in her. He often takes the chat in different directions that serve as metaphors for her passionless self-loathing.
Calling Joe a nymphomaniac does not do her justice. We are talking about a woman having sex with ten men a day. She also holds down a regular job, so it's a bit difficult to fathom when all of this action is taking place, but Von Trier does his best to pack as much sex as he can into her flashbacks. Unlike other films that have dealt with sexually active people, we see penises galore here. At one point, there is a montage of them, so it's probably not wise to bring a Girl Scout troop to see this one.
One scene stands head and shoulders above all the others. Joe is entertaining a gentleman in her apartment and he professes his love to her. Joe knows he is married and tells him that she must end their affair because she loves him too much, and if she can't have him all the time, it would be too painful to go forward with him at all. She needs to hustle him out of her apartment because her next gentleman caller is due to arrive soon. He leaves dejected, but to her great surprise, he returns to tell her that he has left his wife and is now free to be with her. Then come the fireworks.
A knock at her door reveals the gentleman's wife, with her three young sons in tow. She (Uma Thurman) steals the scene and gives the most powerful performance of all, acting with such unbelievable restraint to almost seem an impossible figure, but the venom does leak out and it is one of those scenes that every film could only hope to have within it. By the time it is over, you will be out of breath.
Despite my enjoying Von Trier's latest, some scenes did drag a bit and it can be a bit tiresome. It is full of starts and stops. It can be forgiven, however, because as a whole, it is certainly a success. When it comes to a close, almost nothing has been resolved, though. Volume 2 presumably will answer all of our questions.
