I began writing this on the same day as the commercial monstrosity we know and 'love' as the Academy Awards takes place. And while this piece is ostensibly about the new Lars Von Trier film(s) it seems that I can't keep my seething annoyance at the farce masquerading as some kind of artistic validation ceremony out of my blog. If this review hasn't been written at 4.30in the morning it still seethes with a little indignation. So please forgive the opening digression about Mr McQueen: a fine director and genuine stand up guy, I'm sure we can all agree. Otherwise just jump to the fifth paragraph and ignore the following…
I suspect that the reason I politely seethe is because of
the connection between Nymph()manic parts one and two and
this year's Hollywood binge (and it IS a binge, no matter who wins. Make no
mistake, even if your absolute favourite film of the last year and a half wins
an Oscar it means precisely NOTHING in terms of the value of the work itself).
The connection is the director Steve McQueen.
McQueen's previous film, Shame, concerned itself
with a similar subject; sexual addiction, but notably suffered by a male
protagonist and whose screenplay was co-written by a woman - the brilliant Abi
Morgan. Both films' treatment and exploration of sexuality and post-industrial
psychological damage in the early 21st century differ wildly.
Von Trier's story - the Sheharazade-like unfolding of Joe's
(Charlotte Gainsbourgh) sexual education and subsequent fall from grace, told
over the space of one night after she is discovered beaten and bloody in a
dystopian alleyway by Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) - makes little reference to
pornography, implicitly and rightly conceding that we actually live in a
post-pornography age where the depiction of the act should no longer be
regarded as in any way the breaking of a taboo, or as provocation in the
pursuit of some 'controversy' or grim publicity. In that sense Von Trier's work
is far more contemporary than McQueen's work. This year, McQueen's contender
for a raft of honours at the Academy Awards - 12 Years A Slave -
reiterates the fact that he's essentially a filmmaker who deals more in
historical diatribe: a message guy. I wasn't entirely won over by either 12
Years A Slave or Shame despite their fine (and finely
nuanced) performances, undeniably important subject matter or even their
ravishing good looks. Where was the humanity?
They seemed more educational and, while harrowing, always seem somehow viewed
externally. But Von Trier's films dare you to become part of the narrative. Or maybe I just suffer from a similar type of depression as Von T, but it seemed
that Nymph()mania - woefully marketed as something beyond the pale - packs more life, thought and
vivacity into its four and a half hours than MCQueen’s managed with three films.
Just don't expect it to win any Oscars next year: it doesn't do middle class
guilt.
Never as gruelling as you quite expect it to be, Nymph()maniac’s
episodic and chronological form does feel strangely old-fashioned at times, but
is peppered with enough jokes and shifts in stylistic approach that it never commits
the cardinal sin of being less than involving. This is cinema that accepts
ideas as currency and still sees worth in the literary models that preceded it (half of the characters have letters for names, evoking both Kafka and Anne
Desclos). At times Joe's chapterisation (is that a word?) of her life make the
film seem more like a Defoe novel. This may be why another review saw the film
as having a certain 'confessions' quality. Humour and sex? Heaven forfend. Not since the 1700s have we British been
able to talk openly and maturely about sex without referring to our default
'ooerr missus' mode.
Performances are mostly great, although the constant changes
in tone can throw you at times. Joe’s younger self, played by Stacy Martin, is,
at times so remarkably dumb that you begin to question the veracity of her
tale, while I’ve always found Charlotte Gainsbourgh’s ‘style’ of non-acting
somewhat confounding. I’ll go out
on a limb here and say that I think Von Trier’s use of Shia LaBoeuf can be
viewed as ironic in the extreme. Of course nearly all reviews point to his
awful accent but I think there’s more at work here. LaBoeuf’s character, Jerome,
is a 24-carat jerk throughout and perhaps here stands in for more than one
character (Seligman continually points out the improbable reoccurrence of the
character in Joe’s story – never letting us forget that at best she’s an
unreliable narrator): he’s the man who both initiates Joe’s sexual life and
effectively ends it, never really rising above the two-dimensional. And maybe LaBoeuf’s recent public
meltdown says more about how Nymph()maniac has laid bare his
shortcomings. But this is pure conjecture…
Elsewhere Stellan Skarsgård is now possibly the best actor
to convey shabby Northern European stoicism on the planet. Here he strikes just
the right balance between shabby and sapient. Also of note is Uma Thurman’s
extraordinary tragic-comic depiction of an abandoned wife (in the film’s most squirmingly
hilarious comedy-of-manners moment), and Mia Goth’s turn as Joe’s young protégé
which is, in turns, heartbreakingly beautiful and scathingly insolent.
The use of British idioms and currency would seem to suggest
that Jerome’s vowel-mangling is supposed to imply that Joe's adventures take
place in the UK. But Von Trier is dealing in analogy here and any kind of
factual or geographical accuracy are moot. Most importantly, Von Trier is
defiantly resisting the imperialism of American cinema in favour of European
intellectualism. It’s really no wonder that most spoon-fed, wet behind the ears
'journalists' regard him as 'controversial.' But any controversy here really
resides in words rather than actions. If you balk at the depiction of sex on screen,
a discussion on paedophilia may just blow your tiny mind.
But what of the story itself? Does Von Trier expect sympathy
or empathy for a mother who abandons her child for the slim chance of sexual
pleasure (or degradation)? Of course he doesn't - because he's interested in
the notion that all bad behaviour or dysfunction has more than one cause, more
than one way of being examined. It's up to the (assumed) intelligence of the
viewer to decide what can be taken from this. Is the depiction of violent
sexual imagery at the hands of ‘K (brilliantly played by Jamie Bell as a
weasel-eyed S&M Prince Harry) in any way misogynistic? Not to my eyes,
because what Nymph()maniac does most effectively is to examine gender
differences in the light of addiction. Joe is both victim and proud protagonist
(as displayed in the ruthless logic of the last two minutes of the film, which
I won’t reveal here, save to say it reminded me of the nihilism of Baise
Moi). Is her quest (or pursuance) a spiritual one - as inferred by her bond with her
father and his communing with the ‘souls of trees’ - or a doomed attempt to fit
to society’s mores when eventually she renounces her sexuality, having spent
half of the film trying to regain it, no matter what the cost?
Via these (very masculine) interjections Nymph()maniac
also serves as an answer to so many of the wrong-headed notions and slurs that
the director has had to endure over the last few years. It's the mark of a
maturing artist that he can take these threads into his work and make them
eloquent discussion points rather than barrelling past them in some hermetic,
artistic bubble of misplaced hubris.
Von Trier manages to cram all this into a mere four and a
half hours. I watched parts one and two in once chunk and would advise anyone
else to do the same. And while the film has a logic to its split (the numbers
of the chapters are a reference to the los of Joe’s virginity), I feel it
should always be seen in one complete sitting. I also wanted to see it again as
soon as it finished.
Neither needlessly provocative or a film which gives any
real answers for us gloomy Northern Europeans out there, Nymph()maniac may already
be my favourite film of the year. One thing I do know is that I will be
thinking about it for a long time to come. And hardly anything does that any more, especially if it features Shia LaBeouf. Just don’t expect it to
win any Academy Awards. What greater recommendation could there be?
