Nymphomaniac - 2/10
Lars Von Trier is a poser. A bloody poser.
I hadn't seen any of his films before, and didn't really want to. And maybe I should have left it at that.
I knew I wasn't going to like Nymphomaniac from the very first (non-)scene. After a sign explaining that what we're about to see is only a censored and edited version not validated by the director (attempt at polemic?), we're treated to a 1min30 black shot with ambient sounds in the background. Okay, that's a bad start.
What follows is a hodgepodge of more or less interesting scenes, with Charlotte Gainsbourg in voice-over the WHOLE TIME. 2 hours of almost non-stop voice-over. Are you serious?
Joe gets deflowered by mobylette-man. Joe sleeps with strangers on the train to win a pack of candy. Joe is a one-woman brothel. Joe also sleeps with men married to completely neurotic women.
All this is interwoven with scenes of Joe and the old man talking. Seligman goes into great metaphors about fishing, the organ and god knows what else... It's deceptively intelligent, it's showy, it's pedantic. The automatic illustration of the subject with a hook, an aeroplane or a leopard is ridiculous. What was the point, to intellectualise the dialogue so that the sex looks more shocking in comparison? If you want to see a successful mix of erudition and sex, there's hysterical litterature.
Formally, it's not great. The direction isn't necessarily bad, but it's full of cheap and/or pointless effects. The aerial view of Joe parking his car, with the angles of approach drawn on the ground, would have looked great in another film, but I don't see what it's got to do with this one. I found the cut screen during all the music talk ridiculous.
Besides, I think this chapter represents the film well:
Joe asks Seligman to put on some music. He launches into an explanation of music, the organ, the devil's chord and so on. She takes the opportunity to recount one of her experiences. She chooses to talk about 3 of her lovers. F represents the first part of the chord. We see them having sex, he's the big friendly teddy bear, blah blah blah, he takes her on his lap, he washes her gently with a sponge... Split screen, we get a montage of their various scenes together on the left third of the screen. Second lover, I can't remember who. Same thing, you can tell they're fucking. Re-split screen, teddy bear scenes on the left, him in the middle. Third lover, the wild guy. He waits a few seconds before entering when she opens the door because he's a true rebel. He takes her doggy-style, grabbing her hair, because he's a true rebel. He's like the Wish version of Khal Drogo, to be honest. Poof! Last split screen, we see the 3 montages side by side, and Charlotte Gainsbourg explains to us one last time that we're watching a very subtle reference to the devil's chord, in case we didn't quite understand.
I'd heard that von Trier made complex films that made people uncomfortable, that shocked them... What I saw was a poseur trying to shock, but only succeeding in making a fool of himself. The height of ridiculousness is the sequence of still shots of penises with Charlotte Gainsbourg still blabbering in voice-over. Oh my God! He's shown about twenty cocks, I'll never get over it!
I'm back to what I read at the time of the Miley Cyrus performance scandal at the VMAs: Dance moves that mimic the sexual act haven't been shocking since Elvis!
After that, maybe I'm stupid and missed out on the film, or didn't understand it or something, but even if that's the case, I don't feel like I'm losing much. If I want to watch a good film, I've got plenty of other directors to choose from; if I want to watch sex, I might as well watch porn.
