Just Call Her as Nymphomaniac (Volume I)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymphomaniac_%28film%29

Hi everyone, I hope you guys are well. Today I want to tell you about a film that makes me freaked out. Oh no, it’s not horror, thriller, or psychopath. It was a film about sexuality, but the way how the story goes on was quite unique and elegant. I don’t mean to say that all of the films about sexuality are always subordinate. But a lot of sexuality films are full of drama. You know what I mean, right? And in this note, I will tell you how the film shows us about another definition of sexuality in cinema.

Before I start to talk about the story, I have to tell you that the film might make you disturbed. Why? Because the director makes the sex scene so real. Yup, and there is a lot of it. And maybe some of you will be considering it as a semi porn film. It’s up to you guys, for me it might seem like that, but at least I don’t judge it with the lust paradigm.


The movie titled Nymphomaniac, have you ever seen it? Um, besides the film contains controversial scenes, it’s an indie movie too so I don’t think that cinemas in Indonesia launched it. Anyway, you can find out the film on the internet.

Nymphomaniac is a 2013 two-part film (volume 1&2), written and directed by Lars Von Trier. The casts are Charlotte Gainsbourg (as Joe); Stellan Skarsgard (as Seligman); Stacy Martin (as young Joe); and Shia LaBeouf (as Jerome). 

Nymphomaniac is a woman with excessive sexual and uncontrolled desire for sex. It is usually not a physical condition, instead mainly a psychological condition where the victim seeks multiple encounters (partners) in sex as a way of self-affirmation, rather than satisfaction of sexual desire (the explanation based on www.wiki.answer.com). Nymphomaniac is a term for female, while a term for male is satyriasis.     

It begins with an old charming bachelor named Seligman who finds Joe on a cold winter evening. At that moment, Joe has been beaten up in an alleyway. So Seligman brings her home and asking how she ends up in that condition. Then, Joe starts to tell her story and it related to her highly erotic life from childhood to the age of 50. When she talks about the story, Seligman analyzes it.

The conversation between Seligman and Joe is a unique way to explain to the audiences that sexuality can be described in philosophical consideration. It happens in the way how the director naming every episode of Joe’s story. The name is also a representation of the theme of the conversation and sometimes Seligman gives his philosophical perspective on it. Let’s see how it is going on:

   Volume I:

1.    “The Complete Angler”
Inspired by fly fish hook in the behind of Izaak Walton’s book “The Complete Angler,” Joe opens her story with the developing fascinating of her genitalia. She loves more her father than her mother. She describes her mother as a cold bitch because of the arguable attitude. She also loves her father because he taught something soulful about trees.

portrait of Walton by Jacob Huysmans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izaak_Walton)

When Joe was young, she loses her virginity to Jerome. She gives it not based on relationship between them. It happens because she wanted for losing the virginity.

Years later, Joe and her friend (named B) made a wager to fuck with many people on the train. The winner is the one who could fuck with many men and the prize is a bag of candy. At the end of the game, actually, B was the winner, but something happens and it turned out in different situations. When the ticket checker was coming, they can’t show theirs. At that moment, a man gives tip to the checker ticket then Joe and B can be saved. And finally, B encourages Joe to seduce the man who helps them to have sex. If Joe made it, so the winner is she. It happens because that man is so difficult to be bent down, and Joe made it.

Seligman gives the perspective about how Joe pursued that man. He thinks that the way she can make it is just like fisher throw the fly fish hook. Similarly, seducing man (stranger) to do sex is just like throwing the fly fish hook. A normal man actually could be seduced by a stranger woman. It depends on how the woman managed the fly fish hook.
 
2.    “Jerome”
As Joe gets older and finds work as a secretary after dropping out of medical school, she meets again with Jerome. But their relationship is just as employer and worker. At first, Jerome has obsessed with Joe. But he can’t do it because Joe refuses to make any relationship with him.

On the other hand, Joe makes many sex relationships with some random guys. It happens until she realized that she has feelings for Jerome. But unfortunately, it’s too late because Jerome had left with another girl. Joe felt regret and after that, she is looking for someone who has similarity appearances with Jerome.
    
3.    “Delirium”
Seligman talks about Edgar Allan Poe and his death from delirium. It reminds Joe of her father. She said that the death of her father is just like Allan Poe. Delirium makes Joe’s father suffer and looks pitiful. Joe mentioned that it happens because her father is too fallen in love with her mother. It makes Joe really hates her mother, moreover the day of the burial her mother also didn’t come.

4.    “The Little Organ School”
At the end of this volume I, Joe tells Seligman how she met two men who make her satisfied in the intercourse. The two of them have a different treat.

http://www.finnkino.fi/Event/300028/?TheatreArea=1035

The first is a fat guy with glasses and red car. Joe identifies him as good guy because he always waits around an hour, while she’s finishing her intercourse with other men. Joe explains that the first guy knew how to treat woman in soft way. The second guy is a cool male because he acts like jaguar. The way he walk and treat Joe in the intercourse just like that animal. 

When Joe talks about the two of those men, suddenly she turns out the story that she met again with Jerome. Seligman argues it because he thought that her story is just too inconsistent. It’s too coincidental to be believed. But Joe convinces him that her story is just flowing by the reality.

In this conversation, Seligman compares Joe’s story to the organ that has 3 sounds. The first one is a sound that comes from the organ played by the finger on the left hand. The second is a sound that comes from the part of the organ played by feet. The last sound comes from the organ that played by finger on the right hand and it called cantus firmus (this is the comparison of Jerome). All of it comes from the idea of Bach.

Okay, I think I should stop my note here, because it’s too long. But I will continue the 2nd volume next time. I warn you, if you want to watch this film, you must prepare your mind because the visualization looks so real. Even the sex scene is also graphical.