kaymages Review of Nymphomaniac: Vol. I

Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013)

A rather pretentious, boring, long and vaguely insightful film.

[1/10 · 28 April 2014]

CONTAINS SPOILERS OF BOTH VOLUME I AND II: I give a 1 to this film to balance if possible the high rating it got in this site. The film was rather pretentious and was at a certain degree a classic example of emptiness trying to present itself as "high art". The parallels of nymphomania with fishing in the first half of the film and with Christianity later where pointless and just to make impressions in my opinion, even insulting or blasphemous in some points i could say. Another thing i found strange was the extreme use of "deep" and "wise" references to mathematical, scientific and philosophical concepts. But it all seemed rather forced, messy, and meaningless. It also failed in my opinion to get deep in the human psyche and explore effectively or at least expose the spherical/ holistic nature of the phenomenon of nymphomania. It was quite single sided and narrow minded as i see it. As for the people that claim it was a deep psychological journey, sorry von Trier fans, but the impression this film gave me is that he is a person with poor and shallow insight on the human being not to say prejudiced. In the end i didn't feel being left with some serious food for thought, intriguing questions or spiritually benefited and more self-aware or with self doubt and criticism. I also had the impression that the film was quite naive in some psychological aspects and delivered a rather childish, unrealistic or idealistic view of the human psyche and reality (yes despite all the cruelty and misery depicted it still gave me that impression). Especially at the depiction of the first years of her life and her maturity to adulthood. The showing of nudity as some said and the sex scenes, where not that extreme and had a reason to be there in some moments, but in others i agree that they where there just for the shake of being, no help to the plot or anything. The exploration of the human perversions and fetishes was rather forced too, like the bdsm chapter, gave me the impression that it was there so that the director could state "look! we have put bdsm too in it" and didn't necessarily deliver the desperate odyssey and degeneration of a tortured soul in a realistically climaxing way. It is also important to mention that this was a humourless movie whatsoever. Every attempt of "humour" was rather too dark, trolling, unintelligent, immature or just provoking. Even the born to be wild song in the train scene. Or the casting of Shia Labeouf, if this had a humorous intention in the first place of course. So no mature and original humour. The acting was a bit sloppy too i think, i especially didn't like much the acting of the old Joe (who is the protagonist for god's shake)at a major part of the film but wasn't impressed by young Joe's either. Another weak point was the excessive use of tiring narration, exposition, a sign of weak writing that cannot deliver it's messages subtly and with ease but rather immoderately throws them at the viewer's face. One of the few things i liked in the film was how we got little secret messages and warnings from the beginning about the final scene, where the old man would try to take advantage of her. Honestly i expected that from the beginning. Some will say that it was another drawback of the film cause it was predictable, linear, unintelligent etc bit i think it was delivered in a nice and well thought way. One of the few well thought things of the film. The answers he gave to her shocking stories, how he always tried to justify her actions but came a bit needy, his body language and acting, even some verbal slip-ups. All came to draw the picture of a perverted, repressed old geezer that was ready to explode any moment now. Even he stated he read everything literature has to give on sex, showing his obsession but impotence to make his urges real. If it was just an asexual philosopher he would have read some things just to have an opinion on love but wouldn't have obsessively and explicitly exhaust all the relevant literature. I liked the depiction of the oppressed man, it was more effective than the nymphomaniac's unfortunately. I liked the antithesis of the two main protagonists. The insatiable one that fully gave in in her passion and the "ascetic monk type" that fully repressed it for a life. The one ended up repenting and the other dying for letting his passion feed inside him for all these years. They weren't so different in that sense that's why they came to all these distorted conclusions about love and life, each one by his perspective. Even that "catchy" phrase on love was talking about sinful destructive passion of egoism than love, but they never lived true love so they couldn't have a valid opinion on it. There where also practical mistakes in the film like plot holes, logical inconsistencies, unnatural time loops etc. but i don't want to waste time on these, let other commenters exploit these. For example she went to medical school and did a gyno exam in the beginning? how? was she on her medical specialty? no. she was just a sophomore where they just open corpses and such, they don't do gyno exams. (except if things are different in england and i'm mistaken). The p girl chapter near the end i found it rather bizarre, unrealistic, not making much sense and just being there to make more shocking impressions or hopelessly try to save something that seemed doomed already. So in conclusion four hours are far too much for a film that has no much to offer you (i include volume 2 too). But if you are so curious arm yourselves with patience and watch it.