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Author
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Topic: Nymphomaniac
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-28-2014 02:10 AM
Nymph()maniac, Lars von Trier's 2 part, four hour "unrated" epic became available to Netflix customers, which is how I watched it recently. This isn't the kind of movie a traditional multiplex theater is going to book. NC-17, X-rated or Unrated, they're not going to book this sort of thing -which gives the cable folks, video stores and streaming outfits like Netflix more legitimacy.
I'm not sure what the hell I was supposed to take from this movie other than not finding it incredibly boring and highly pretentious. If anything it seemed like a movie-going challenge to see if the viewer could get to the end of it before switching to another back episode of Mad Men or Breaking Bad. There are several points in both movie parts where I felt Lars von Trier was deliberately challenging the boundaries of any viewer. From that perspective it didn't seem much different than watching an episode of Faces of Death. Deliberate manipulation fails the moment the viewer feels like he or she is being manipulated.
Charlotte Gainsbourg plays Joe, a self-proclaimed nymphomaniac found beaten the shit out of in an alley by Seligman, played by Stellan Skarsgård. He takes her home to recover and asks her all the questions of why she was found in that condition. You get a two part, four hour saga as an answer of sorts.
We get a life story of sorts about Joe, how she became a nymphomaniac and ultimately came to terms with it. Lars von Trier pushes strange literary devices into the story, such as fly fishing and Fibonacci numbers. I don't think the devices work all that well, particularly in how the numbers 3 and 5 are so damned important in the creation of a nymphomaniac. The ending of Vol. II capped it off as a real WTF moment.
Details are another thing that pissed me off about this two-movie saga. A nymphomaniac will likely have to deal with consequences of contracting sexually transmitted diseases. The young Joe and one of her friends take train rides, having contests with each other to see who can screw the most male passengers. Is there any bonus in the contest for catching that clap? The movie says nothing about this. The movie is also awkward transitioning between the young Joe and the more mature Joe. Hell, it doesn't make any effort to make the young Joe look pregnant for that part of the story. And I really don't understand Seligman's seemingly blind sympathy for Joe's situation. She tells him all sorts of cruel, selfish things she has done to other people and he takes her side on it the whole time, culminating in the WTF moment at the end.
Nymph()maniac does deliver on a few titillating points. There's plenty of full frontal female and male nudity. Unlike most adult non-porn movies where all the sex scenes are believable yet still simulated, this 2 part series has scenes that appear truly explicit. The term "explicit" is often used loosely by film critics and anyone else talking about movies; they'll apply the term "explicit" to anything simulated that looks believable even though they know it's still acted and not real. There's no doubt about the explicit nature in at least a few of the scenes of this 2 part saga. But if that's the real attraction to spending 4 hours of your life watching Nymph()maniac there's much easier and far more explicit pursuits available immediately on the Internet. Unlike porn, this movie expects you to not click the fast forward button to get closer to the good part. It's just a question of if you're going to get anything out of it or just waste your time.
Rating 2 stars out of 4
Note: that's a generous rating. It would be lower if not for some of the obvious chances taken in making the movie.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 01-02-2015 07:35 AM
quote: Leo Enticknap
Von Trier's finest moment has to be stringing up Björk. Now if only he could make a film involving Taylor Swift and an electric chair...
If I may weight in my vote I'd go for Justin Bieber. I leave the utilities involved up to Von Trier's wicked imagination, of which I'm sure there's plenty, as long as the list of adjectives contains the following words: long and painful.
Heck, it would be the first product involving "Bieber" I would actially willingly pay money for ![[Wink]](wink.gif) .
Edit: I forgot to mention that I'd even would pay a premium if they would add an unsimulated to the list of adjectives.
quote: Lyle Romer
I don't really understand the "pornographication" of movies and to a large extent TV shows (Game of Thrones being a pretty extreme example). Is it so people can watch porn and feel they are watching something "acceptable?"
I'm not really shocked by stuff like "nude" or "sex"... It is, for one thing, more natural than splicing open each other's skull for example... and I'm usually not really offended by that either (as long as it remains in the context of a movie).
The problem with sex and nudity in many movies and TV productions is, it's really just there as a cheap "marketing ploy". Since I'm not watching a regular movie with the intentions of getting all aroused, much of the often lengthy sex scenes, explicit or not are really just easy story fillings and rather boring as hell.
So, personally, I don't have problems with nudity, sex or violence, but it should be there to serve a purpose other than just "marketing".
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 01-02-2015 12:27 PM
quote: Lyle Romer
I don't really understand the "pornographication" of movies and to a large extent TV shows (Game of Thrones being a pretty extreme example). Is it so people can watch porn and feel they are watching something "acceptable?"
At least to me there are very obvious differences between the nudity and simulated sex scenes in premium cable TV series and feature movies versus that of porn.
First of all, we must acknowledge the fact most R-rated and "unrated" Hollywood movies have those ratings due to violence. Far fewer R-rated movies that play in theaters have nudity in them than they did 30-40 years ago. Movies like Nymphomaniac are an exception. I don't agree feature movies are going through some kind of "pornographication."
TV series like Game of Thrones and True Blood push some boundaries with their depictions of sex, perhaps even crossing some lines that would get a Hollywood movie slapped with a NC-17 rating. However, I haven't seen anything regarding sex in those shows I'd call "extreme." The Starz series, Spartacus pushed those boundaries more than any other TV series I've watched. Additionally, Spartacus seemed to define a new level in graphic violence. Even with that TV series, if I was going to apply the term "pornographic" to anything in Spartacus I'd probably do that with its extreme graphic violence rather than its simulated sex.
Nymphomaniac does cross some lines into porn territory, even if Lars von Trier says a mix of practical and digital visual effects were used to create the explicit looking shots. The effects made the depictions of oral sex and intercourse look pretty real. A true porn video will set up camera shots on whatever sexual activity is happening, often up close, and hold the shots for long amounts of time. Nymphomaniac didn't do any of that. The shots that did look real weren't on the screen but for a few seconds at a time.
If I was going to take offense at anything in Nymphomaniac it would have been directed at the absurd characters and their points of view on sex rather than any of the visuals.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 01-02-2015 05:17 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
Far fewer R-rated movies that play in theaters have nudity in them than they did 30-40 years ago.
In the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, various interviewees argue that since the 1970s, the US censors have relaxed their approach to violence but tightened it up on sex. Maria Bello complains that what she claims was a sensitively done but relatively explicit sex scene in The Cooler (though of course she would, given that she appeared in it) was cut, whereas at around the same time, a slasher movie featuring some very gory violence with sexual overtones was passed uncut with an 'R' certificate.
About the most ridiculous example I've come across in recent years is a compilation of historical sex education classroom films published on DVD by the British Film Institute. The whole set carries an 18 (British equivalent of R) certificate, and there is a note on the sleeve explaining that this is because of one title, Growing Up, which contains a brief scene showing actual genitalia. Under the British Board of Film Classification's rating criteria, that earns the entire box set an 18-certificate: no ifs, buts or arguments.
Growing Up was intended to be shown to 13 to 15-year olds by the people who made it. So, four decades later, the intended target audience for this movie cannot legally see it!
Marcel - agreed. Maybe he should have Bieber and Swift singing a duet in one of those two-seater gas chambers?
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 01-06-2015 04:06 AM
quote:
Growing Up was intended to be shown to 13 to 15-year olds by the people who made it. So, four decades later, the intended target audience for this movie cannot legally see it!
Having spent my high-school years at a rather Catholic school (which happened also to be the only viable choice available), I still remember the controversy surrounding those sexual education movies, which really was quite backward from all perspectives imaginable. Those movies were all banned outright by the school management. But, many of those teachers not being all that Catholic and also being forced by the government to add some kind of sexual education to their program, did show those videos anyway...
quote: Leo Enticknap
Marcel - agreed. Maybe he should have Bieber and Swift singing a duet in one of those two-seater gas chambers?
I even didn't know they also came as two-seater, but it surely sounds economical! But yes, who would NOT want to see that? Maybe we should drop Von Trier a mail or I guess it’s Twitter or something other "social" nowadays? As for me, he can have the idea for free .
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