Nymphomaniac

Film Review by Rachel Bowles | 14 Apr 2014
Film title: Nymphomaniac
Director: Lars von Trier
Starring: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Uma Thurman, Willem Dafoe.
Release date: 28 Apr
Certificate: 18

Lars is back to his provocative, trolling self with sex confessional Nymphomaniac. Erudite yet impotent Seligman (Skarsgård) happens upon a battered Joe (Gainsbourg) in an alley and takes her home for tea and sympathy. Joe unreliably narrates her sexual escapades, while Seligman interrupts her, relating her stories to fly fishing and Bach. Von Trier frames this with fussy chapters and laboured metaphors, in either a forced display of stylistic flourishes or mockery of such conceits.

Nymphomaniac’s casual attitude towards racism and sexual assault is at best idiotic – when Joe sexually assaults a male acquaintance, it’s presented as a kindly act. Gainsbourg is thoroughly immersed in von Trier’s typical destructive feminine mode, and for a film about nymphomania, there is a distinct lack of jouissance. Nymphomaniac’s clunkiness and desperation to shock could be forgiven if it wasn’t so uniformly dull. With a talent such as Lars, it really is unforgivable. [Rachel Bowles]

Released on DVD and Blu-ray by Artificial Eye

http://www.artificial-eye.com