Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) continues her search for sexual pleasure and pain in NYMPHOMANIAC VOLUME II (photo by Christian Geisnaes)
NYMPHOMANIAC: VOLUME II (Lars von Trier, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave., 212-875-5600
Landmark Sunshine Cinema, 143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves., 212-330-8182
Opens Friday, April 4
www.magpictures.com
Two weeks ago, when the first half of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac opened at the Landmark Sunshine and Lincoln Center, I reserved judgment until I saw Volume II, which begins April 4 at the same locations. Now that I’ve experienced the second part of von Trier’s four-hour graphic exploration of feminine sexuality and the very nature of storytelling itself, I’m at last ready to render my opinion and publicly declare my admiration for this masterfully crafted, often deadly dull and repetitive, but, in the end, gloriously inventive work. Volume II picks up right where Volume I concludes — it’s actually one film that has been broken into two parts in theaters and on VOD, forcing people to pay twice to see the whole thing — with Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) in the midst of telling her brutally in-depth tale of sexual addiction to the sincere and respectful Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård), who brought her into his home upon finding her badly beaten in a dark alley. In the flashbacks, Joe is now played with mystery and complexity by Gainsbourg, after the young Joe had been previously portrayed by the bland and boring Stacy Martin, and the change of actress is one of the key reasons why Volume II works so much better than Volume I. Joe shares details of trying to make a sex sandwich, giving group therapy a shot, becoming obsessed with a violent sadist (Jamie Bell), and accepting a dangerous job with L (Willem Dafoe).
L (Willem Dafoe) offers Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) a dangerous job in second volume of controversial Lars von Trier sexual epic (photo by Christian Geisnaes)
In between her stories, which are divided into such chapters as “The Eastern and the Western Church (The Silent Duck)” and “The Mirror,” Seligman delves into various intellectual theories to help explain her exploits, discussing religion, paradox, democracy, language, mythology, Freud, and such dichotomies as suffering and happiness, pleasure and pain, Wagner and Beethoven, and the virgin and the whore. Cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro’s camera is far more steady in these scenes, in contrast to the moving, handheld shots that dominate the flashbacks. The interplay between the calm, gentle Seligman and the lonely, lost Joe is beautifully acted and inherently touching, but, this being von Trier, the film’s ending will further controversies that already involve episodes of extreme violence and actual sexual penetration (the latter performed by body doubles). I certainly would have preferred seeing Nymphomaniac in one complete sitting rather than in two parts, one of which stands head and shoulders above the other (although they do need each other); however, I’m not sure what I’ll do when the five-and-a-half-hour director’s cut is released later this year.