'Nymphomaniac'

Howdy. Offt! March is looking like a very strong month of films at the cinema and I'll tell you what, I'm going to try and see them, and then write about them and then…ehh…maybe watch a bit o' telly or something. What is catching my eye in particular is: Nymphomaniac (parts I and II) (Lars von Trier, 2013); Her (Spike Jonze, 2013); Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013), The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014) and Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)

Let's kick this of with Nymphomaniac (Lars von Trier, 2013). In typical style there was a buzz around - no! A furore - No! A brouhaha (doesn't fit as well as furore but I like the sound of it) around the film. The controversy, or expectation, or umbrage, or what ever swell of feeling, is often stimulated in no small part by von Trier himself (see the publicity shot). This time Lars von Trier has remained muted about the film in a self imposed gagging after his persona non grata at 2011's Cannes film festival after comments he made about Hitler, comments which he asserts was completely stupid, but was just a joke gone wrong. Either way his film of that year Melancholia (2011) was removed from competition. This time he let the actors and the publicity speak for him (Lars is in the above publicity shot, with a camera in his hands and his mouth duct taped shut). As is also quite common for Lars von Trier, the ballyhoo that surrounds the filmmaker and the films content does not always do the film justice. 

This is not porn, it may have pornographic images and it may have sex as a concern, but it is not for mere spectacle, it is an expression of a character's emotional state and a shaping of their philosophical being; the film is maybe more a sensitive character study and a profound look at the effects of depression and perhaps the ability to confusion or substitute emotional feeling with sensuality. It is beautifully rendered, Lars von Trier is a filmmaker who instils confidence in me that digital replacing film needn't be a bad thing in cinematography terms. Two terrific central performance (and one absolute stinker - Shia LeBeouf, I'm looking at you here. Where are you supposed to be from and why should I care?) Charlotte Gainsbourg's Joe is enchanting, her voice has an almost hypnotic cadence to me at times, and Stellan Skarsgård, as Seligman, is heartbreakingly charming and sensitive, his interruptions to Joe's tales are funny, philosophical and endearing.

Ooohhhhhhhhh! Or something - I dunno.

The beautiful design of the film's publicity material demonstrates that there is much more to the film than the overt sensationalism of the film's sexual content allows for. With the title displayed as Nymph()maniac, which has the obvious visual symbolism of a vagina but also splits the word into the two components nymph and maniac; nymph has mythological connections with beautiful female spirits and is also, as mentioned in the film, an immature state of the development of insects which changes little throughout their life, and fly fishing, and maniac which is exhibiting extreme/wild behaviour. A dichotomy perhaps? The parenthesis then might perhaps suggests a silence between the two states; words not spoken, or questions not answered, or excuses not made. The whole campaign around the film is terrific take a swatch at the website.

The film itself is clearly a Lars von Trier film and carries a lot of his technical hallmarks: jump cuts and handheld camera work juxtaposed with meticulously composed, sumptuously rendered HD images. His stock cast joins him for various amounts of time Stellan Skarsgård and Charlotte Gainsbourg I've already mentioned, Udo Kier and Jean-Marc Barr also pop up, and Willem Dafoe is starting to be semi-regular. The narrative follows his familiar, segmented 'chapter' progression rather than a flow of acts and obvious cause and effect. Beyond these potentially auteurist indulgences, there is also a self-referentiality in Nymphomaniac certainly looking toward the directors previous two works, Antichrist (2009) and Melancholia, perhaps underlining these films as a loose trilogy or triptych.

There is humour in this movie, humour as black as treacle, remember the Hitler 'joke' mentioned earlier, as it is weaved throughout scenes that would be beyond shocking in 'mainstream' cinema, perhaps even taboo. The ideological subterfuge of 'mainstream' cinema though is that it is arguably selling you sex as it pretends to be all about the lofter preoccupation of love. Nymphomaniac explores sex and so for that is less eroticised and, as I see it, offensive.

No milk?

Yes, at times this film is explicit sexually but that is not the same as saying it is gratuitous. It is also explicit emotionally and possibly politically, which all just makes it challenging and what's wrong with that? Challenging and uncomfortable do not automatically point to offensive. I personally found this film to be quite tender, thought-provoking and certainly unflinching. I also had a moment of disappointment right at the end but then von Trier doesn't dodge character actions that perhaps side swipe you and alter your perceptions, maybe even undermine your faith in some people - maybe in all people. I would certainly place it high in the director's catalogue of work...that said I definitely wouldn't watch it with my mum.

Anyhee that'll do me. Catch ye, I'm away to the pictures. J