Movie: Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac Vol. I

Art? Pornography? Comedy? Shocker? Hard to say – the first volume of the new Lars von Trier movie Nymphomaniac (IMdB, Wiki) defies any characterization – as usual for von Trier.

This first part of an originally 5+h long movie starts with the elderly bachelor Seligman finding a beaten up woman, brings her to his appartment, where she starts recounting her story as nymphomani(a)c, while he tries to analyze it from his intellectual point of view.

Full of symbolisms hard to decipher (why are the Fibonacci numbers so present? what with the fly fishing? etc), the story develops over the life period of Joe, the girl, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg) from small age to adult. As with other films of von Trier, like to Europa Trilogy (Element of Crime, Epidemic, and Europa), or the USA: Land of Opportunities (unfinished) trilogy (Dogville, with the wonderful Nicole Kidman, and Manderlay), the movie is highly avant-garde, often held in black-and-white, and long scenes of impressions.

Although so much against the social norms, we cannot reject the feelings of sympathy for Joe, and the disgust for the men around her. Strange and disturbing. A metaphor – or deconstruction – of love as we know it? For me his movies are pieces of art, sometimes a bit deviant art, but worth every pain and every tear and every smile.