It starts with a woman being found by an older man in a back alley after having been severely beaten. He brings her home to allow her to recoup, which leads to the divulgence of her story about how her rabid nymphomania destroyed her life. From her younger days of competing with her friend to see who can fuck more guys on a train, to coincidentally reconnecting and building a life with the guy who casually took her virginity as a teen. Her sex addiction eventually leads to her covetous relationship with an S&M 'specialist' and, oddly enough, her involvement in mob-tactic debt collecting...
My rundown is pretty general, seeing as how this is a 4+ hour film as a whole, but that's about it - the life and times of a nympho. Now, anyone familiar with Von Trier's films would have to certainly agree that the guy makes a hell of a good looking flick and "Nymphomaniac" is no exception. It's a beautifully shot film with great cinematography and a dark elegance to many of it's symbolic visuals n' whatnot. There's no doubt that Von Trier is right on the money when it comes to his films' visual nature, as it typically stands out to me as the overall strong point of his work. Where this movie just didn't "hit" with me was the story. And it's not that it was completely boring or overly long (which, it IS fucking long!), but more of the fact that it always just seems that Von Trier is relying primarily on gimmicks and taboo's that are common in "underground" NC-17 films these days. It's the whole pretentious ''art film' masquerading as potential 'smut'' (or the other way around, perhaps) that other film-makers such as John Cameron Mitchell and Vincent Gallo have since imitated. Of course, these are the 'non-porno' films that contain scenes of more 'hardcore', unsimulated sex that garner large hipster followings for the fact that they get to argue the aesthetic merit that apparently overrides the 'graphic' content to those who apparently don't understand, in turn, making them play out their faux-cinema expertise dickheadedness. Not that certain movies can't contain 'harder' sexual material that accompany a noteworthy storyline or any other good qualities. Hell, it's no mystery that I adore films featuring 'explicit' shit and will usually do whatever I can to seek out the most fucked up examples of that brand of film. However, these types of movies - "Shortbus", "9 Songs", "Intimacy", etc. - seem based on conceitedly "blurring that line" between 'porno' and 'art' that it just gets distracting. I can't speak for everyone, but, personally, I'm not SHOCKED by a 'mainstream' movie showing unsimulated sex scenes. And in the case of "Nymphomaniac" and shit like Gallo's "The Brown Bunny", it doesn't make the movie any more interesting, as far as I'm concerned. Either go BIG with the shocking sleaze or just simply focus on the plot.
Anyway, now that I got that long-winded bullshit out of the way... "Nymphomaniac" isn't a bad flick, by any means. I know Lars Von Trier has his following and I know that I don't really fit into that category, though I gotta give him props on his terrific style and all of the performances for being pretty stellar. Again, the 4 hour runtime is a little... MUCH and shit doesn't really get "good" until Volume 2. Von Trier fans will surly jizz themselves over this and, while I thought it was well shot and acted, it really didn't do much for me. Kudos for making one of the longest NC-17 flicks out there, but it was neither sleazy enough, nor able to hold my interest enough. The Uma Thurman scene and the African DP scene were funny, though.
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