Nymphomaniac

[99h13]

Who's excited for this one then? (And I mean looking forward to it when I say "Excited" you dirty people!)

I've just seen the trailer for the first time and I was surprised to see so many well known good actors that are involved. It actually looks like its going to be a decent film.

Trailer below: (Warning Explicit Content)

[valda]

I don't think I'll be watching it I'm not really one for LArs Von Trier. I found that one with FAssbinder parading around with his bits out bad enough

[Yinster]

http://metro.co.uk/2013/12/04/cinema-sh ... O=facebook

A group of children didn’t quite get the Disney film they were expecting after a cinema accidentally showed a trailed for sexually explicit movie, Nymphomaniac.

Horrified parents at the cinema in Tampa, Florida, in the US, reportedly covered their children’s eyes, while others made a swift move towards the exit as the clip for Lars von Trier’s art house sex film was played out.

Lynn Greene, who had taken her grandchildren to see the Disney animation Frozen, said there were some technical difficulties delaying the start of the film so the theatre played another cartoon.

However, a teaser a film described as the most explicit to ever be shown in mainstream cinemas was screened instead.

Pinellas Park cinema in Tampa, Florida (Picture: My Fox Tampa Bay)
Pinellas Park cinema in Tampa, Florida (Picture: My Fox Tampa Bay)
‘They put in the filler, it looked like Steamboat Willie, the old Mickey Mouse cartoon, and then all of a sudden it goes into this other scene,’ Mrs Greene told My Fox Tampa Bay. ‘It seemed like forever when you’re trying to, you know, cover a little guy’s eyes. I didn’t have enough hands to cover his ears too and he got the sound down real good.

‘You’re talking, what, a PG-rated movie to all of a sudden have an R-rated scene up there for little children? My concern is that there should be safeguards in place so that this doesn’t happen again,’ she added.

The cinema has since offered free film tickets to those in the audience.

Various trailers for Nymphomaniac, featuring an all-star cast including Charlotte Gainsbourg, Uma Thurman, Willem Dafoe, Shia LeBeouf, Jamie Bell and Christian Slater, have already been banned from YouTube for their graphic sexual content.

[LondonCityNights]

I can't wait for this! Although I predict that this will split the board pretty cleanly between like and loath!

[TheyCallMeMrGlass]

There was a One night stand showing of both volumes of this film on Saturday night with a Q&A session which I had advanced booked tickets for. I must confess I have never seen a Lars Von Trier movie before and last night I suddenly got panic attacks in what the hell I am getting myself into without any idea of who this film maker is and whether I am going to be watching some self indulgent 4 hr porn movie. So in prep for the epic 4 hour double bill screening, I watched Melancholia last night.

So very briefly, I just want to express my feelings for Melancholia first. I watched it via Netflix and throughout the film I felt regret because this deserved the full cinema experience. It was a beautifully shot movie with a rich and complicated character tapestry that pulls no punches in its raw form of behavioural predictabilities and indeed unpredictability, an order to chaos as it were. I was totally transfixed with the beauty of its sound and vision and that ending...man I wished I saw this in the cinema.

But anyway, the main thing is I now know what a Lars Von film is like so I felt ready now and more calmer as I entered the realm of what appears to be Lars Von's most personal film, a film about sex.

And wow, it turned out to be an amazing epic cerebral experience. An opus journey of sexuality and social repressions. It is a film that dares to question the morality in society's version of morality. It exposes our inner desires, repression and society's oppression of everyone's deepest and darkest thoughts.

One thing I will guarantee, this ain't a film anyone will masturbate to. Sure there is graphic sex and nudity but every bit of it is entwined in the most compelling and strongest narrative which is told in an ingenious structure filled with the darkest of humour. In fact volume one could almost be deemed an outright dark comedy. However, volume 2 takes a very dark turn, although no less compelling and still sprinkled with dark humour but it gets ugly, even uncomfortable, yet, remains powerfully entrancing. Where Melancholia exhibited beauty in its imagery, Nymphomaniac does the complete opposite, it gives you ugly.

In fact, in a way, if one is aroused from this film, it would not be from the naked bodies, genitals or sex but from the exhilaration of its narrative.

Unlike other auteristic filmmakers, from what I can see from Melancholia and Nymphomaniac, Von Lars gives you a complete journey of clarity in its narrative and bold messages. Like Tarantino, Lars Von cuts it up in pieces but takes it to a new visceral and exhilarating level of poetic excellence.

The performances are exquisite all round including the now much ridiculed Shia Lebouf. There is also a standout sequence from a cameo we do not often see these days. Probably one of the best performed cameos I've seen in years, certainly knocks the two great cameo performances in American Hustle and Zombieland (my previous favourite of all time) out of the park.

Now there is a puzzling flaw in his film, one that I cannot understand the logic to. There is a primary character that suddenly changes into a completely different actor aged only a few years older but looks nothing like him. I cannot understand why a new actor was needed in the first place as the first actor could easily have been made to look a few years older and it completely threw me off my emersion, especially during a climactic crucial scene. Same goes for the main female protagonist but in her case, different actresses are justified for various stages of her life that spans over decades but the two main adult actresses' bodies are so damn different, so again I am submerged out of the film. However, their faces did match and I suppose that mattered most and we just have to attune with that jarring actor transition. I had this same problem with David Lean's version of Great Expectations where two completely different actresses of nearly polarising characteristics played the same character.

Aside from that very jarring actor transitions, I cannot fault anything else.

This is a daring epic yet intimate, intensely thought provoking journey that forces open the gates that our society keeps padlocked, revealing the various sexual urges among individuals that ranges from brutal to sensual and the choices made by those individuals to release or suppress their urges and the effects that our judgemental society has on those individuals. The film dares us to give different perspectives on morality.

Its an entertaining and exhilarating experience, intertwining several stories into a majestic whole. At 4 hours in length for both volumes, I was not bored for one second. I am tempted to even call this a masterpiece which is a word I have not used in many years but those character actor transitions bothers me so alas, that word will have to wait another day but damn this comes so close.

I think I might well be a fan of Lars Von...but I am going to be cautious, I might have to study his psyche a bit more before I call myself that. That gaff he made during the Melancholia panel talk needs some analysing...what the hell does Hitler have anything to do with Melancholia anyway? He's a nutter but boy is he a masterful filmmaker.

9/10

Then there is the fascinating and very informative Q&A, unattended by Lars Von Trier of course, due to his self inflicted ban on public talk appearances...and yep, no sign of Shia LaBeof! But I feel tired now. I will post some fascinating insights I gained from the Q&A another day.