Review of Nymphomaniac: Vol. II (2013) by Nightreviews — 04 Apr 2014

Leaving us on the cusp of coming…to any real closure with our young protagonist Joe (Stacy Martin), von Trier throws quite the curve ball with his character and the overall story, allowing the narrative to take an unexpected turn. After five chapters in the life of Joe’s deranged and numb life, we continue into her sexual escapades as she becomes a woman, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. Nymphomaniac: Volume II picks up exactly where Volume I left off, and doesn’t leave any sex or shock behind. Instead, Volume II is the overly stimulated, ultra aroused, and intellectually charged sexual explicit drama that Volume I never was.

Although the film was never meant to be split into two parts, and von Trier intended the film to be his original five and a half hour long cut, Volume II is the complex and deep answer to a conventionally linear sexually charged character piece that was Volume I. Think of Nymphomaniac in the same way as you would Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill saga. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is soaked with violence and bloodshed, making great use of the magic of movie spectacle and serving as a valiant homage to so many of the films Tarantino grew up with and loved.Kill Bill: Vol. 2, a film that infuses so many of the complex philosophies Tarantino has cherished, as well as surely inducting many of his own radical and absurd justifications without much violence, spectacle or gore, the film becomes a philosophical, witty and complex story with an understanding of his protagonist’s psyche and the reason behind her vengeance. Now picture Nymphomaniac: Volume II in the same way as Kill Bill: Vol. 2, but instead of violence, substitute it for graphic nudity and sexual acts (although it is not nearly as subtracted as the violence in Vol.2 of Kill Bill). So basically, the second film in von Trier’s carnal opus is a long-winded, understanding of Joe’s addiction and the ways in which she tries to subdue it, or if anything, control it.

Volume II descends to the deep and dark corners of a woman who no longer finds simple penetrative intercourse pleasurable. When sex is not enough, what happens? If Joe is any indication of real world nymphomaniacs and the paths they follow in order to find pleasure, von Trier never prepares us for the unexpected directions Joe goes, desperately to find pleasure, at any cost.

There is no doubting that Joe finds erotic pleasure in the most taboo places and scenarios. She purposely pulls the wires from her car to attract a large crowd of men, who she presumably goes back to have sex with as the camera pans out. She finds strangers on the street, specifically two black men, who so happen to be brothers, to penetrate her at the same time. The scene, which is a big production still that was used towards the marketing of the film, is less graphic and erotic than what you would imagine, and instead more hysterical as it unfolds, especially with the quarrels of the two men. In Joe’s last attempt to find pleasure with a **** that has failed her, Joe finds a man by the name of K (Jamie Bell), an expert in the brutal art of bondage/BDSM whom she finds stimulating through violence and pain. Her relationship is one that she sacrifices the most for as she becomes a woman and a business professional, compromising her health, the little family Joe has, and of course, the limits of her addiction. Volume II of the saga explores the ways in which people find meaning in their addictions without penetration, although they are overall, mostly naturally and habitually inclined to express themselves through intercourse.

If you know anything about Lars von Trier, you would know that he is a man with many phobias. An intense fear of flying and various bouts of serious depression, the director is a man who implements so many of his phobias onto his characters, especially Nymphomaniac. Ironically enough, since his declaration to never be part of interviews or press conferences again since his last conference at Cannes accused him of loving Hitler and being a Satanist, Volume II has a lot of bottled up feelings the director has been dying to express–in controversial fashion.

Throughout Joe’s narration of her life to Seligman (Skarsgård), he describes her actions to those of a man’s behaviour of sex. For the most part, Joe is always powerless to her men, especially in the scenes with K (Bell) who appropriately gives her the alias Fido, a name predominantly used for a dog. Joe is submissive and obedient to anything K says, including tying her to couches, chairs or asked to stand still, unflinching, regardless of the painful outcome. Although Joe seems to give all the power to her sexual partners, there is no denying the control she has over them, mentally persuading them to adhere to her requests.