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What a rollercoaster. I definitely found a lot of it hilarious. The African guys threeway was really funny. Like, they get into an argument because they're scared their balls will touch. People were saying the scene is really offensive because it's framed as scary black guys threatening a little white lady, which is how the promotional image and trailer framed it I think, but in the movie itself it's all high comedy because of the context and the way it unfolds. Re: the ending, a lot of von Trier's movies owe a lot to de Sade's novels, especially in his "Golden Hearts Trilogy" Justine, and for this movie Juliette. I think he's mentioned this himself before with regard to his older films. And from that perspective the ending makes total sense; it's the culmination of the reverse-morality-tale that the narrative is based upon. If the spergy virgin dude represents "us," it's obvious from the entire rest of the film that he was going to do what he did. As cringeworthy as it was in context, that's what the "say right and do wrong" speech was about; he's undeniably right and she's undeniably wrong in that situation, but it doesn't matter because wrong and evil always win out in the end. There's no girl-power catharsis from her killing him either; it's just another failure: she killed a person just like she had decided she wouldn't and learned to be proud of herself for not doing, her only friend turned out to be a base animal just like every other person in her life. Ultimately, she was proven right with regard to the gun going off: it was just a chance occurrence, his whole theory about her unconscious good motives winning out and causing her to forget how to use the gun was bullshit because unconscious drives are always toward brute sexuality and violence. In all I liked it. There were definitely things about the execution in parts that I wasn't fond of - especially where as noted her dialogue gets a little bit preachy - but ultimately it was a really intense, messy epic that I'm really glad got made. The worst part about it is definitely Shia's wildly inconsistent and half-assed accent(s), but even that just became part of it after a while. It wasn't that distracting, and his actual performance isn't terrible (not really remarkable either).
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Mar 14, 2014 15:48
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 08:26 |
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Binary Logic posted:I found the metaphysical conceit of the narrative to be very bookish (hesitate to call it literary). Initially I thought the movie was based on a book because the manner of relating Joe's sexcapades to fishing, to music, to math, etc is exactly how many modern novels are set up. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Trout Fishing in America are the most obvious ones that come to mind. I mentioned this I think, but it's seriously straight out of de Sade. The exact conceit of an "experienced" woman telling her tale is used several times in his novels. The secret society of girls was sort of similar to ones that show up in his books too, but obviously the one here was toned down. Nymphomaniac is basically a combination of Justine and Juliette in a way (with more recognizably human or psychologically realistic elements, I guess). There's also the sort of ironic fact that the movie is set up in a "literary" way but in its theme is explicitly anti-book culture: the culture of disembodied knowledge that must relate every aspect of life to some intellectual phenomenon, make metaphors, etc. is pretty conclusively shown to be a weak sham when compared to embodied unintellectual uncultured life. In that sense I guess they are supposed to be "cringe-worthy"? quote:To make this a CineD post, can anyone recommend other similar themed mainstream movies, where sex is used as metaphor or to drive the plot? The ones I can think of are: Shame?
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Mar 22, 2014 22:49
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All that stuff makes sense as stuff a spergy virgin would bring up when he gets nervous listening to a woman talk about her hosed up sex life. Or, I guess, complaining about how a movie character didn't explain them quite right would also be a typical thing for the same character to do.
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Mar 24, 2014 06:47
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Catherine Breillat's movies might be interesting too? "Anatomy of Hell" is the only one I've seen, and I didn't like it at all, but it treads similar waters as Nymphomaniac.
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Apr 12, 2014 20:29
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The ending does sneak up pretty fast, I felt the same way. Certainly any missing chapter will be in the 6-hour video release version! 
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Apr 17, 2014 02:39
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What's wrong with it? It's basically the inevitable and perfect result of everything that comes before it.
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Apr 18, 2014 17:51
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Silver Newt posted:It wouldn't have felt so out of place if the character hadn't been deliberately set up as an asexual virgin who was more interested in fly fishing than hearing stories of teenage nymphomaniacs. There's a huge discussion about how no one can escape their sexuality and the entire movie is about how civilization is basically a pretension. Like the entire movie telegraphs that moment and when it happens it feels more inevitable than anything, I have no idea how it could come out of nowhere for you unless you were taking everything he said at face value and not thinking about what was going on.
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Apr 21, 2014 22:54
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It was funny though? The whole thing is funny.
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May 3, 2014 18:38
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 08:26 |
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I didn't think they were really "lying." Like there are definitely blind spots in both of their images of themselves and each other (as the ending makes obvious) but I think it's a lot more likely that the story she tells is essentially true and that Old Jerome was who he was presented to be. I don't really doubt that part in particular at all, especially since characters making surprise return appearances is such a major part of the moralistic 18th century novels von Trier takes his structure from. In other words I think the opportunity for ambiguity is in the characters' self-justifications and attempted explanations for their actions rather than the actual facts of what happens (with Gainsbourg's cynicism opposing Skarsgard's rational optimism).
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May 23, 2014 00:31
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