‘Nymphomaniac’ is erudite instead of erotic
Von Trier fumbles this opus on sexuality
For those who don’t equate sexual appetite with the intricacies of fly fishing, Nymphomaniac: Vol. I is more tiresome than titillating.
Provocateur filmmaker Lars von Trier blends pedantic commentary on mathematics, music and Edgar Allan Poe with surprisingly dry descriptions of a woman’s prodigious sexual appetite. Nature shots are splits-creened with explicit but lame sex scenes. Carnality abounds, but it’s more clinical than sexy.
In one sequence, a panoply of penises in a variety of sizes, shapes and hues fill the frame as part of a larger story in which Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) explains the origins and development of her nymphomania. The narrative device in which Joe dully details her erotic escapades is often stilted, occasionally compelling.
The film opens mysteriously. As water drops from a rusty pipe, the camera pans across a gloomy urban landscape to reveal a woman lying battered in an alley. A good Samaritan named Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard) offers to call an ambulance. When she refuses, he takes her into his home, cleans her wounds and settles her into a twin bed to recover. She introduces herself as Joe, then sleeps fitfully. When awake, she recounts how she got to this state.
Some scenes are illuminating, such as when young Joe (played in flashback by Stacy Martin) describes her carnal awakening. She first feels her nascent power over men as a nubile teen having sex on a train with random passengers.
Seligman interjects with oddly intellectual commentary on subjects such as the wonders of Bach’s fugues. Von Trier would like us to think he’s attempting a serious examination of sexual voracity. But it seems like an exercise in pretension.
Nymphomaniac is a peculiar, downbeat and decidedly male view of a woman’s appetites, not an honest assessment of her multifarious desires.
Since this is the first of a twopart film, further elucidation could emerge when Vol. II opens in theaters April 4.
Von Trier’s effort to explore a woman’s libido in a two-part film is intriguingly ambitious.
It’s debatable, however, whether von Trier is the best filmmaker to take on this complex subject matter. At least in this rambling first volume, he doesn’t delve much beyond the surface.