Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013)
(NYMPH()MANIAC Vol. 1)
Country: DK/BEL/FR/GER/GB
Technical: col/bw/2.35:1/1.85:1 117/145m
Director: Lars von Trier
Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Connie Nielsen, Uma Thurman
Synopsis:
A closet intellectual who dabbles in fly fishing finds a young woman injured in an alley and takes her back to his flat, whereupon she confesses her life story as a nymphomaniac egotist.
Review:
The master provocateur strikes again with this so-called thesis on nymphomania, duly divided into chapters whose headings reveal that it is about a good deal more. Alternating between scenes of jaw-dropping boldness (for the performers concerned) and multi-media analysis of the human behaviour depicted, the presentation draws for its analogies in post-modern fashion on subjects ranging from angling to Bach organ works. Watching von Trier's films, one has come close to redefining his cinema as a combination of Ingmar Bergman, Peter Greenaway and Jean-Pierre Jeunet all rolled into one. At the same time it is not hard to qualify the persona of the director as a composite of the two present protagonists, on the one hand provoking his audience with increasingly perverse entertainments, or moral conundrums, while on the other defending or rationalising these excesses with recourse to the universe of human knowledge. Whether one is taken in or simply entertained by his specious arguments will, I suspect, depend on the breadth of one's particular horizons.
(NYMPH()MANIAC Vol. 1)
Country: DK/BEL/FR/GER/GB
Technical: col/bw/2.35:1/1.85:1 117/145m
Director: Lars von Trier
Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Connie Nielsen, Uma Thurman
Synopsis:
A closet intellectual who dabbles in fly fishing finds a young woman injured in an alley and takes her back to his flat, whereupon she confesses her life story as a nymphomaniac egotist.
Review:
The master provocateur strikes again with this so-called thesis on nymphomania, duly divided into chapters whose headings reveal that it is about a good deal more. Alternating between scenes of jaw-dropping boldness (for the performers concerned) and multi-media analysis of the human behaviour depicted, the presentation draws for its analogies in post-modern fashion on subjects ranging from angling to Bach organ works. Watching von Trier's films, one has come close to redefining his cinema as a combination of Ingmar Bergman, Peter Greenaway and Jean-Pierre Jeunet all rolled into one. At the same time it is not hard to qualify the persona of the director as a composite of the two present protagonists, on the one hand provoking his audience with increasingly perverse entertainments, or moral conundrums, while on the other defending or rationalising these excesses with recourse to the universe of human knowledge. Whether one is taken in or simply entertained by his specious arguments will, I suspect, depend on the breadth of one's particular horizons.
(NYMPH()MANIAC Vol. 1)
Country: DK/BEL/FR/GER/GB
Technical: col/bw/2.35:1/1.85:1 117/145m
Director: Lars von Trier
Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Connie Nielsen, Uma Thurman
Synopsis:
A closet intellectual who dabbles in fly fishing finds a young woman injured in an alley and takes her back to his flat, whereupon she confesses her life story as a nymphomaniac egotist.
Review:
The master provocateur strikes again with this so-called thesis on nymphomania, duly divided into chapters whose headings reveal that it is about a good deal more. Alternating between scenes of jaw-dropping boldness (for the performers concerned) and multi-media analysis of the human behaviour depicted, the presentation draws for its analogies in post-modern fashion on subjects ranging from angling to Bach organ works. Watching von Trier's films, one has come close to redefining his cinema as a combination of Ingmar Bergman, Peter Greenaway and Jean-Pierre Jeunet all rolled into one. At the same time it is not hard to qualify the persona of the director as a composite of the two present protagonists, on the one hand provoking his audience with increasingly perverse entertainments, or moral conundrums, while on the other defending or rationalising these excesses with recourse to the universe of human knowledge. Whether one is taken in or simply entertained by his specious arguments will, I suspect, depend on the breadth of one's particular horizons.