Ninfomanía: Vol. I
Nymph()maniac
Director:
Lars von TrierGuión:
Lars von TrierCámara:
Manuel Alberto ClaroReparto:
Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Shia LaBeouf, Stacy Martin, Jamie Bell, Connie Nielsen, Mia Goth, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Christian Slater (más)Sinopsis(1)
La loca y poética historia del recorrido de una mujer desde su nacimiento hasta los 50 años contada por Joe, la protagonista, que se auto diagnostica como ninfómana. Una fría noche de invierno, Seligman, un viejo y encantador soltero, descubre a Joe tirada en un callejón después de que le hayan dado una paliza. La lleva a su casa y la cuida mientras ella le cuenta durante 8 capítulos la exuberante y multifacética historia de su vida. (Golem Distribución)
(más)Reseñas (11)
Gloria a Trier, por haberse atrevido a rodar un tema tan incómodo que interesa a todos, pero pocos se aventurarían a hacerlo. Alegrémonos de que un cineasta con tanta gracia guionista y cinematográfica se haya metido en esto. ¿Para quién más interpretarían las estrellas de Hollywood en una película tan explícita, cuya versión ya editada contiene imágenes tan duras? (quizás a Haneke) Diálogos, dirección de actores, remates de las escenas, atmósfera, todo marcha perfectamente bien. Nymphomaniac es una película para espectadores adultos, pero no por su desnudez. Cuanto más sepas sobre el sexo y más experiencia y vivencias tengas, más lo entenderás. Es una película psicológicamente exploratoria, seria y triste, pero contada con gracia, a través de comparaciones metafóricas. La definición de polifonía es la esencia de la película y el deja-vu de Rammstain a Carretera perdida de Lynch es su condimento. Tengo curiosidad por la segunda y aún más por la versión completa, que ya tiene un lugar en mi estante de películas importantes.
()
For the moment, some indecision about the latest “controversial” prank by Lars. The individual stylistically different chapters are effective, from the depressive Delirium to the almost grotesque (and the most fun) Ms H., with Uma Thurman. But what really annoyed me was the binding conversation between Gainsbourg and Skarsgård, it feels as if they’re talking at cross purposes all the time. It’s drowning in shallow allegories and metaphors, which Trier shows way too literally on top of that. Some of those allegories are so stupid that I have no choice but to consider them as intentional mockery of the philosophers and intellectuals who love to connect the unconnectable, find meaning where there is none, and find profound truths in the likening of a sexual train trip to fishing. Here they don’t need to look for anything because Trier has found it for them, and everything is so explicitly shown, from the fish in the river to the graphic representation of the golden ratio. I believe that he is now laughing and singing something along those lines. If I’m wrong, he’s gone mad. Let’s see what Volume 2 brings.
()
Trier listened to talk about how brilliant he was for so long that he finally believed it and tried to create the most complex film of all time. In it, he has it out with everyone and comments on absolutely everything, thereby serving up an incredible load of motifs, images, metaphors, and subliminal messages that is, at its core, cheaper than paid sex for one time... (Volume 2)
()
Lars von Trier once again made me think. Not only did he make a unique biographical film, but he also crossed the boundaries with an excellent camera and a special way of narration, to which he is actually no stranger. What’s worse is the fact that he divided the story of a nymphomaniac into two long two-hour films, which have no fundamental point at all for the viewer to focus on. We just see Charlotte Gainsbourg lying on the street, beaten within an inch of her life. Stellan Skarsgård takes her under his wings, wishing to hear her story. Why was she lying beaten on the street? So Charlotte starts telling her story. Chapter 1 – a discovery that I have a pussy. Chapter 2 – a discovery how to use my pussy. And then a story starts to unfold about the nymphomaniac using others, not caring what it does to them. At the same time she starts to meet people who are even more twisted than she is. At times it’s absurd, at times it’s fun, a few shots came straight from a porn flick, but as a whole it did absolutely nothing to me. Anyhow I started watching the second part right away, because I was hoping that the story would get at least a bit depraved…
()
Interrupted masturbation. There are basically two ways to read this metaphor. 1. Being pulled out from deep fascination with watching the volatile dialogue of an aging cultural man (Seligman) and an impulsive, animal woman (Joe), who describes to him her sexual maturation with an emphasis on earthiness, while he places details full of vaginal secretions in a network of parallels, archetypes and classical art procedures. 2. Interruption of Lars von Trier's directorial masturbation. The third sinner in a bizarre psychoanalytic session is undoubtedly the Danish enfant terrible, who exposes the meanings and his directing method to the viewer. Shia LaBeouf's penis is not the "most explicit" component of Nymphomaniac: Vol. I. The most explicit component is the way in which Trier consistently turns the challenging theme into the ancient genre of Bildungsroman, which, following the example of old texts, reveals in the introduction what the next chapter will be about, what the viewer will learn from it, and with what intention the narrator tells it. A quirk? Certainly. Does it work? Not always. Since there is no point in evaluating the fragments that Trier ingeniously assesses during the ENTIRE narrative. I will just stick to the fact that this public masturbation, which does not avoid excess, but at the same time has a sometimes surprisingly tame and cultured effect on Danish conditions, has my focused attention for the next two hours.
()
Lars von Trier is the art-house equivalent of the celebrated trickster William Castle, whose films were always only a fraction of the overall experience without the additional attractions and means of promotion prepared by the master. Von Trier has elevated the contemporary trend of massaging the media long before a film is released to a concept in and of itself, and has raised marketing and PR to the level of art. He took those originally utilitarian tools and made them part of the overall work, where the film is not the objective, but rather the culmination of a single grand performance – in this case, it is a culmination that has been greatly delayed, as Nymph()maniac is divided into two parts and released with a title informing viewers that they will see only the censored and abridged version of the fabled director’s cut. Von Trier and his collaborators are simply masters of packaging and promotion (which is brilliantly evident in the trailer for the second part, which first appears in the closing credits of Volume I and raises grand promises, which of course remain unfulfilled). At the core of von Trier’s work like ambivalence between the cult of the auteur that he has built around himself over the years, as well as the highlighting of the manipulativeness and falsity of art and artists. The director’s latest piece looks like a frank treatise on human sexuality, which clearly is supposed to go against the grain of bourgeois notions of normalcy, but at the same time, it comes across merely as a calculated act, a way to profit magnificently from the age-old adage “sex sells” in today’s ridiculously strait-laced world. Nymph()maniac itself is surprising as a film hypertext, simply a sort of nymphomaniac.wiki, that doesn’t give viewers only text to analyse and interpret, but directly gives them all interpretations and references with citations. The lofty phrase that there is nothing to add to a film because it already has everything is absolutely entirely true this time. It’s as if the aim was to make a film about which there is nothing more to say than the primitive “I liked it/I didn’t like it" (if you don’t want to quote what was said in the film or draw attention to the obvious). So, let’s say that Nymph()maniac is mostly entertaining (particularly in its minor details, such as the brilliant birth sequence), but it’s more often rather overly clever, as it constantly refers to and adores its own narrative. The fourth wall doesn’t get broken here, but is actually set up behind the viewers (just as in the case of browsing the internet, especially social media, where perceptions from individual links and threads immediately disappear in the next text). As a result, the film’s main positive aspect remains the fact that, even though sex has the role of a commodity and an attraction in the project and in the promotion of Nymph()maniac, the narrative doesn’t approach sexuality in an exploitative way, but rather with fondness and empathy, particularly with respect to its potentially more shocking forms presented in the second part. Generally speaking, however, it is absurd, albeit apt, that the labels “provocateur” and “enfant terrible” have been assigned to a filmmaker who, at least in his last two films, hasn’t done anything but simply show themes such as sex, family and relationships in a more sincere, or more cynical, form in comparison with the sentimentality of mainstream and festival midcult films.
()
(menos)
(más)
Not completely... but still very promising. Humorous and dark stories from life are sometimes shocking, as some comparisons can be. Von Trier by the way explains the secret of good fly fishing. Maybe it’s due to heavy producer’s cutting, but Nymph()maniac doesn’t (yet) seem like an over the top erotic movie, but a study of female sexuality presented in a fresh and entertaining way. The audience at the movie theater laughed at the right places (situations that are funny if they aren’t happening to you) and jumped in shock several times, but during the nympho scenes, nobody was offended, on the other hand they probably weren’t disappointed, either. The acting can’t be faulted at all. A top-notch cast dominated surprisingly by the young Stacy Martin (who looks exactly like a classmate from college) rather than by Charlotte Gainsbourg, but it’ll probably be the other way round in part two. In the supporting roles, Uma Thurman draws attention with her flawless creation of a perfect wife and Christian Slater in the role of the kind daddy. So far intriguing and it looks like it’s going to get even more so. Zwei Bilder nur ein Rahmen... Ein Körper doch zwei Namen... Zwei Dochte eine Kerze... Zwei Seelen in einem Herzen...
()
A very nice ironic comedy of life. There’s no controversy, no implausible fabrication, just life as it is. I like this movie better and better each time I watch it. An utterly irresistible listener could be none other than Stellan Skarsgård, and the young Stacy Martin is sexy in every shot. I must also praise Christian Slater, but the absolute most epic performance is by Uma Thurman, who brought totally absurd theatrics to this setting. The Director's Cut maintains the same dramatic arc in each chapter, but the eroticism is logically more explicit and therefore more believable. And yet, through it all, Delirium remains the most powerful experience, the only chapter without a major sexual motif.
()
This is exactly how it looks when someone says that girls deal with bullshit. Lars Von Trier captured it very well, so basically it's a film about nothing. It has lots of references and metaphors, but in essence, it doesn't actually say anything. So, the best film about sex remains Eyes Wide Shut, which does say something.
()
I don't know what I was expecting, whether something more controversial, interesting, or simply something that would give more to a person. I am personally quite interested in a similar topic, but I much preferred the way Steve McQueen captured it in "Stud." Lars von Trier has been showing off basically since the first shot, trying to be artistic, but it's all the same and it was already in his previous films. Besides that, I was expecting something more intense from this author. There are shots here that you won't see in a normal film, but nothing too surprising. The second part promises more, so we'll see.
()
Nymphomaniac had something that no Trier film has had before, and that was a very long and extensive advertising campaign. Who knows if we would have ever awaited this opus if Lars hadn't announced at that famous Cannes press conference that his next film would be several hours of porn. I still remember that press conference vividly, because Trier's "Final Solution with Journalists" is truly unforgettable. As for the film itself, Nymphomaniac follows in the tradition of Trier's last two films, but it should be noted that, unlike Melancholia and Antichrist, the opening is not as heavily stylized in terms of imagery, which of course is then richly compensated for by a visual playfulness almost unusual for Trier (not that Lars isn't otherwise visually creative, but in places here he's really "JUST" playing around). One can't help but notice that in terms of visual "disjointedness" this is actually Trier's calmest film (then again, handheld camerawork of course has a firm place here; after all, it's still Trier...). Rather, I meant to suggest (or maybe Trier meant to suggest) that this is the final part of The Depression Trilogy, which may even symbolize an attempt at a more restrained ending, as matched by the intensity of the use of the handheld camera (I sat in the second row at the premiere of Melancholia, and after 10 minutes I had a bad headache from the constant bouncing of the camera). Otherwise, it's a wonder that such a controversial subject with a very controversial campaign actually resulted in one of the least scandalous and controversial films in Trier's entire filmography. I'm becoming convinced that Lars von Trier is not "just" a brilliant filmmaker/manipulator, but also a man with incredible marketing acumen, and last but not least (lately) a successful businessman. I wish him the best with that, since he’s still true to his style and his auteur imprint remains very strong.
()