Nymphomaniac: Vol. II
Director: Lars von Trier
Starring: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Willem Dafoe
123 mins; Class 18; Eden Cinemas Release
And so we come to the second and final volume of Lars Von Trier’s opus Nymphomaniac. Volume I introduced us to Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg), a self-diagnosed nymphomaniac who is discovered badly beaten up in an alley by a kindly man, and to Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård), who takes her into his home to take care of her. While there, Joe recounts the story of her life, a life fuelled by her insatiable sex-drive.
At the end of Volume I, Joe reconnects with Jerome (Shia LaBeouf), the man who actually introduced her to sex as a young teenager.
After giving birth to their son Marcel, Joe settles down briefly into motherhood and a ‘normal’ life which, instead of calming her, sends her closer to the edge and into a downward spiral to further darkness as she loses her desire for sex.
As a result, events take a turn from the graphic and troubling to the unrestrainedly explicit and highly disturbing. If in Volume I we watched events unfold with uncomfortable fascination, Joe’s exploits in Volume II finally force us to avert our eyes; especially her relationship with the masochistic ‘K’ (Jamie Bell) as her attempts to recover her desire take her on an ominous road to violence – which Joe both receives and, as she takes on a job with the mysterious ‘L’ (Willem Dafoe) inflicts.
A disappointing ending that is completely unforeseen and negates what we have learned before
Gainsbourg’s performance remains consistently moving and watchable, her Joe a mass of complexities – dark and funny; sympathetic and abhorrent – while Skarsgård offers solid support, and you will never look at Jamie ‘Billy Elliot’ Bell in the same way ever again.
Narratively, however, Volume II lacks the impetus that drove the first instalment. Paralleling Joe’s dilemma, von Trier seems to crave what has gone before but can’t reproduce it. It feels almost like he loses interest in the characters for a while and fills the void by inflicting more provocative scenes upon us or asking us to accept one coincidence too many.
Things do get back on track momentarily with the introduction of ‘P’ (Mia Goth), and I guess it was only a matter of time before Joe embarks on a relationship with another woman, who becomes her protégée.
However, as Joe’s narrative reaches its, ahem, climax, the film comes to an abrupt end with a brief and ham-fisted conclusion.
Von Trier has attracted more than his fair share of controversy during his eclectic career, accusations of misogyny among them. The fact that he has created some very powerful roles for women (including Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst) refutes that.
Yet I wonder whether von Trier attempted to counter these accusations by creating in the provocative and complex Joe a woman who marches to the beat of her own drum; a woman who is fiercely independent and who, while relying on men for her sexual pleasure, will not be controlled in any way by them.
This is made clear in a scene where, in sex therapy, Joe refuses unequivocally to call herself a sex addict and she may be finally accepting herself as she is.
Furthermore, Seligman opines that her life has been a battle “against the gender that had been oppressing and mutilating and killing you and billions of women”. This could well be von Trier’s rationalisation, and it is perfectly satisfactory and yet … just as the final pieces of the puzzle that is Joe are about to fall into place, we are lumped with this disappointing ending that is completely unforeseen but negates completely what we have learned before about both Joe and Seligman.
This was never going to be a happy-ever-after story, but a more satisfying conclusion was warranted for what was up to then a powerful, provocative and for the most part well-executed film. Having stuck with these fascinating characters for so long, they and we, deserved something better.