Review for Nymphomaniac Vol.1 & Vol. 2

Nymphomaniac is not a film for the faint of heart. The fact is the phrase 'A film by Lars von Trier' should already give you an idea of what to expect. After his film Anti-Christ was met with critical praise and bile as well as many issues with censorship, it is not surprising that his new film should meet the same mixed reactions.

Split into two 'Volumes', these films tell the story of Joe who is found in the street unconscious by Seligman bloody and beaten, Taking her in for a 'cup of tea', she begins to tell him her life story. There is almost a classical feel to how the story is told in voice over almost like the narrator of a Dickens novel.

However, unlike Dickens, the story is about the sexual exploration of Joe from a young age. And by 'young' this is one of the aspects that is a little creepy in this film and not very pleasant. The scene of her losing her virginity is not the magical experience most films make it out to be, instead it is slightly depressing (and not just because it is with Shia LaBeouf). She then begins to tell the tale of her life as a nymphomaniac. It seems all her experiences include sex with many, many, many people. A later scene of Joe and her friend having a competition to see how many men they can have sex with for a bag of sweets is bizarre and the fishing aspect is a little odd to say the least.

That could possibly be an accurate description of the films in general: 'odd'. As the film continues you begin to wonder what von Trier wanted to achieve by making it? It is true we get to see some powerful performances from Charlotte Gainsbourg as Joe and Stellan Skarsgard as Seligman and most of the supporting cast are great.

The number of high profile stars in this film is impressive with Christian Slater, Uma Thurman, Udo Kier, Willem Dafoe amongst others. They all put in great performances and even I have to admit Shia LaBeouf is great in his part of Jerome. However, the change of actress from Young Joe played by Stacy Martin to Charlotte Gainsbourg is a little jarring and slightly pointless when the aging could have been easily achieved with make-up. Same could also be said for the actor used to play the old Jerome which was again unnecessary.

The visual elements are all very post-modern in a way that made me scream at its overt pretentiousness. A scene of Joe parking includes a diagram of how to do it, scenes jumpcut between each other, reverse and replay in a way that was innovative in the 1990s and now is just a Director trying to be clever. Oftentimes all this did was make the film far longer than it needed to be. I felt the two films were just too long with too many slow scenes von Trier could have cut easily cut an hour out of each film and made just one.

Of course the sexual content of this film is extreme to put it mildly. We see all matter of sexual acts across the two volumes. The first one is the most sexually explicit and the second where the brutal sado-masochist side of the film comes into play. The nudity is never censored and I couldn't count the number of sexual scenes throughout. It's at this point where I can understand why the film was split into two parts. I think if you had to watch the film in a whole four hour stretch it would be a chore, but in two sections it made the film/s a lot more enjoyable (if that's the right word) with the break between.

Of the two, I think the first is the more enjoyable from a narrative aspect. The second film is almost an endurance to sit through. Both do compliment each other and though they can be watched separately you do need to see both for it to feel complete

The film is sadly not brimming with extras. This is a shame as it's the type of film that really does need a commentary or something to learn what the director wanted to achieve with the film. Disk One includes interviews with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Shia LaBeouf, Stacy Martin and Stellan Skarsgard. Most of these are ten minutes long and do give a lot of information about how the film was made and why the actors were involved. I did then expect the second disk to make up for this, but this is sadly not the case. Instead a Live Q&A with Stacy Martin, Sophie Kennedy Clark and Stellan Skarsgard. This is nice, but not who I wanted to hear from. The lack of any input from von Trier is disappointing.

Nymphomaniac Volume 1 and 2 are films that you really need to be prepared for. These are not films to watch with the family and not films that are restricted to the intellectuals and art house fans. I do feel that they try a little too hard to be flashy and clever, coming across as a little pretentious at times, but these are still two enjoyable films. There are very few films that can be so frank in regards to sex and this is certainly one of them, but be warned they are films that stretch that 18 certificate to its limits.