NYMPHOMANIAC VOLUME 2

Denmark, 2013, 123 minutes (abridged version), Colour.
Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgaard, Shia La Boeuf, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, William Dafoe, Jean- Marc Barr, Mia Goth.
Directed by Lars von Trier.

Nymphomaniac Volume 2 begins, of course, where the first Volume stopped. Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is still talking with Seligman (Stellan Skarsgaard), the therapeutic conversation that she began when he rescued her from her injuries in the street.

There is something of a different tone in many of the sequences in this Volume. Joe is played in the flashbacks by Charlotte Gainsbourg, instead of Stacey Martin as in Volume 1. She is still with Jerome (Shia LaBoeuf). They marry and have a child. But, as the years pass, Joe’s psychology and sexual proclivities manifest themselves again.

A great deal of time is spent in Joe’s encounter with K. When she loses all sexual feeling, she goes to visit K in his office, with the waiting room full of other women. The point of K’s therapy is that it is sado-masochistic. With her various visits to K, and the long part of this film that is devoted to these visits, there is a certain prurient curiosity aroused in the audience, and at times the director seems to be indulging that curiosity, allowing the audience to pry. But, since this is not the usual experience of most audiences, there is a certain feeling of being repelled by this part of Joe’s life.

Her loss of sexual feeling is extended to feelings for her son, when she leaves the child alone since the babysitter had not arrived. What follows is a sequence that parallels the episode in von Trier’s Antichrist, the little child going to the window, on the windowsill, with the possibility of its falling to its death. The result is that she loses her child to her husband – but seems to manage without him.

The next new character, not in Volume 1, is L, played by Willem Dafoe, who runs a company that uses standover tactics to pressurise clients to recover money from debts. Joe applies for a job and, for many years, is successful, not afraid to use violence to torment people – quite a powerful sequence with Jean Marc Barr as an unaware paedophile whom she taunts and tortures. These episodes add another touch of grim nastiness to the tone of the film.

This is increased when K advises her to prepare her successor and she grooms a young girl, an awkward young girl with the lack of self-esteem, to be ready for the standover job. Over the years, she is completely successful, but, in the vein of the film, there is a sexual relationship between the two women.

And then the story comes full circle, an unexpected situation and some violence.

This Volume is a little different in that there is an intellectual and artistic component, a number of references to Christian history, to iconography, to music, to Freudian psychology, digressions generally instigated by Seligman. The main difference for Joe is her story, told by her father (a welcome return from Christian Slater as the father) about everyone finding their own personal tree. There is a more lyrical and symbolic sequence where Joe scales a mountain, finds her tree in the glow of the sun.

It would be a relief to say that the film’s climax is in this vein – but it is not and the dramatic ending is quite unexpected and shocking.

Nymphomaniac is certainly a cinematic achievement, an exploration of sexuality in so many of its forms, sometimes clinical, often therapeutic, daring in some of its explicit sequences, not the kind of film that mainstream audiences would be interested in or enjoy – it is a specialist film, the type of film that might be expected from Lars von Trier who is never restrained by inhibitions.

1. The impression of the film and its characters and themes by the end of Volume 1? The portrait of Joe, the portrait of Seligman, Joe and her past, her psychology, the need for conversation, of therapy, the sexual behaviour, the nymphomania? A good relationship with her father? Her relationship with Jerome, from the first meeting, later meetings, marriage? The range of partners? The heritage of Mrs H and her children in the confrontation?

2. Her being in Seligman’s house? Continuing her story, his attentive listening? Yet his distractions, his digressions, into art, into question history, psychology…? The split between East and West and the Church, 1053? Joe’s images of the Whore of Babylon and Messalina? Sexual significance? The background musical score, contemporary, classics, Handel? Wagner?

3. Joe’s story, reunited with Jerome? Having a home? Changing? Jerome and his life? Her loss of sexual feeling? The episode with spoons in the restaurant? Joe and the powers of cars and Beethoven’s Fur Elise? the encounters with J and the sado-masochism? L and his standover collecting job? The confrontations? The various characters, including the paedophile? Her protégé, the relationship, the apprenticeship? Jerome as a victim of the collector? Going to the house, the gun, Seligman finding her in the street? The shock ending?

4. Seligman and his listening, empathy, his questions, his own attitudes, her asking him about his sexuality, asexual, fish? Listening? Questioning himself? The final attack and his death? The grim picture of men? Their treatment of women?

5. Charlotte Gainsbourg as Joe, fulfilling the role in Volume 2 and some flashbacks? Her age by Volume 2? The relationship with Jerome, the life, the years passing, her pregnancy, giving birth and its effect? Loving her child?

6. Losing her sexual feelings, the years, Jerome and the sexual relationship, his absence? Her discovering K, the awkwardness of the first visit, in the waiting room, the other clients? K as a character, the range of clients? Her return? The encounter, the sado-masochism and its details? The whippings, crying out, the sexual feelings? K himself, seemingly asexual, yet his control, the sadism? His relationship with the clients? Joe and her wanting a more personalised sexual relationship?

7. The man in the street, asking him to proposition the black men, their going to the room, stripping, their arousal, the sexual encounter with Joe? The aftermath? Their language, arguing between themselves?

8. The effect on her of this sado-masochism? The long sequences and their effect on the audience? How prurient?

9. The babysitter, not arriving on time, Joe wanting to go to the appointment, leaving the child, the child going to the windowsill, the danger of its falling out (as in Antichrist)? Jerome coming home, her absence, his decision to leave, putting the child in foster care? The name Mars for the God of war? Joe and her supporting the child in the foster home, with the money every month?

10. The character of L, his personality, her application for the job, his standover tactics, debt collecting? Taking the job, the passing of the years, her efficiency, sexual power, as illustrated by the assault on the man and revealing his paedophile proclivities, yet his controlling them all his life? Her humiliating him? Stripping him physically and psychologically, emotionally? Her comparing her loneliness with his?

11. L, wanting to have a successor for her, his choice of the young girl, Joe ingratiating herself with the girl, the basketball matches, praising her, boosting her self-image? The girl and her dependence, asking questions? Growing up? Joe’s work? Becoming an apprentice? The graphic sexual scenes between them, the lesbian behaviour? The effect on the girl? On Joe?

12. The image of the tree and finding one’s personal tree? Her going to the mountain and discovering the tree, the sunlight?

13. The discovery that Jerome was a target, leaving it to her protege, Joe’s absence, the liaison is, getting the gun? Going to Jerome’s house, seeing the relationship, her anger, with the gun and shooting?

14. Being accosted in the street, Jerome, the girl? Adele and her despising of Joe, the physical violence in fight? The gun?

15. Coming to the beginning of the film, to Seligman, the final talk, his approach to her, shooting him?

16. The tone of the film, the complete film, the ugliness and nastinesses in Volume 2?

17. The overall effect? The character of Joe, understanding her sexual motivation, behaviour, proclivities? Her exploiting them? Her self-focus? The
moments of altruism in her life? The presentation of the men, exploited, exploiting, the range? Volume 2 and the greater psychopathy, loss of feeling, the brutality, the exercise of power in her job, exploiting her apprentice, disillusioned by her? Disillusioned with the final behaviour of Seligman?

18. What was the audience left with in terms of interest, entertainment, therapy and psychology in cinema?