Nymphomaniac parts 1 & 2

First things first: the Australian edition of Danish director Lars Von Trier’s highly anticipated sex-fest isn’t actually porn. Australia is currently getting the conjoined four hour version (with a ten minute interval) rather than the original two separate films (over five hours in total). Reportedly the main difference between the two versions – a disclaimer at the beginning of both parts 1 & 2 says that while Von Trier is aware of these “censored” versions, he does not condone them – is that the sexually explicit penetration shots have been removed (90 minutes worth?) If they’d been left in then the film would have almost certainly been rated X, and therefore been unable to be shown in non-porn cinemas.
Once you get past that disappointment, here’s the good news: it’s surprisingly funny for a film that opens with a man (Stellan Skarsgård) walking through a tiny courtyard on his way home only to find a battered woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) lying unconscious on the wet ground. He takes her home, puts her to bed, introduces himself – he’s Seligman, she’s Joe – and she proceeds to tell him the story of her life. A life, we soon discover, that has been utterly consumed by sex. Settle down: the sex isn’t all that erotic and there’s not all that much of it compared to your average arthouse smut. At least Seligman is constantly interrupting Joe’s stories with digressions about fly fishing, music, the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, and anything else he feels her tale could be connected too, which is often surprisingly funny.
Her sex life grinds on; her romantic life develops too. Unsurprisingly for a Von Trier film love is both a burden and a chore – Uma Thurman gets a great scene as a spurned wife who arrives for an overly dramatic confrontation, Joe eventually moves on to multiple random partners and S&M, and things are no longer as funny as they once were.
It’s a big meal but not a particularly deep one, and while it’s a film worth seeing, it’s not one all that worth thinking about. Maybe losing all the hardcore penetration was a real loss after all.
Written by Anthony Morris