Taglines: Forget about love.
Nymphomaniac is a wild, poetic drama about a woman’s erotic journey from birth to the age of 50 as told by the main character, the self-diagnosed nymphomaniac, Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg). On a cold winter’s evening the old, charming bachelor Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) finds Joe beaten up in an alleyway. He brings her home to his flat where he tends to her wounds while asking her about her life. He listens intently as Joe, over the next eight chapters, recounts the lusty story of her highly erotic life. Seligman reads a lot of books, from which he has acquired various general knowledge. He connects the stories told with what he has read about.
The story is divided in 2 volumes and 8 chapters, Volume I follows Young Joe as portrayed by Stacy Martin, while the older Joe in Seligman’s apartment is played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Volume II follows Joe as portrayed by Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Volume I
“The Compleat Angler”
“Jerôme”
“Mrs. H”
“Delirium”
“The Little Organ School”
Volume II
“The Eastern and the Western Church (The Silent Duck)”
“The Mirror”
“The Gun”
Some plot elements
Joe and her best friend B ride a train, competing on being the first to have sex in the train with another passenger, usually in the toilet. They offer a man who paid their ticket to have sex with him. He declines, being on his way to his wife, since it is a favorable day with respect to her fertility. Joe gives him a blowjob anyway (in his seat), and the man cannot resist the temptation.
As a girl Joe asks Jerôme: “If I asked you to take my virginity, would that be a problem?”, and he answers that it is not a problem. The sex is quick and not very satisfying for Joe.
Joe applies for a job as secretary, although she has hardly any of the required skills. Jerôme happens to be interim manager, and hires her. He wants sex with her in the elevator, but she refuses. When the regular manager returns she is fired.
When one of Joe’s many sex partners stays too long she tells him that she wants to break up with him because he does not break up with his wife, Mrs. H. He leaves, breaks up with Mrs. H, and returns with his things, to move in with her. Mrs. H and three young sons arrive, and let Joe and the man know how much misery they have caused. Meanwhile another sex partner of Joe arrives, making the situation even more awkward.
Chaotic situations occur when Joe’s father is dying in the hospital. In between Joe has sex with people in the hospital.
Joe and Jerôme have a relationship, and get a son. Joe wants more sex than Jerôme can handle, therefore he requests her to have also sex with other men.
Joe regularly visits young man K, in a setting like that of a doctor, with a waiting room with other female clients/patients, to be tied up nakedly and whipped. She leaves her young son unattended, after which Jerôme breaks up with her, taking their son with him.
Joe hires an interpreter to invite a black foreigner in the street to have sex with her. He agrees and comes to a hotel room, but is unexpectedly accompanied by a friend. The three have sex together, during which the two men quarrel with each other, and treat her as an object.
Joe becomes debt collector: together with some assistants she puts pressure on men to pay up (either money really owed, or as a form of extortion), using her insight into the psychological and sexual weak spots of men, in cases where violence and destruction of property does not work. At her mentor’s advice she grooms the girl P with criminal parents, preparing her to be her successor. P joins the debt collection team. One day she brings along a gun, but Joe does not agree with that and takes it from her, and keeps it. Joe and P, now an adult, become friends and have sex with each other.
One day the debt collection target is Jerôme. Joe does not come along, she instructs P to avoid violence and allow him a reasonable payment scheme. When Jerôme and P get too friendly with each other, Joe gets jealous and attempts to kill Jerôme with the gun, but fails: the gun is loaded, but she forgets to rack it. Jerôme beats her up. This is where Seligman finds her.
Seligman confesses to be asexual. However, he tries to rape Joe in her sleep, assuming she, as a nymphomaniac, would not mind. However, she wakes up and kills him with the gun.
Nymphomaniac Vol. 1
Directed by: Lars von Trier
Starring: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Jamie Bell, Christian Slater, Connie Nielsen
Screenplay by: Lars von Trier
Production Design by: Simone Grau
Cinematography by: Manuel Alberto Claro
Film Editing by: Morten Højbjerg, Jacob Secher Schulsinger, Molly Marlene Stensgaard
Costume Design by: Manon Rasmussen
Set Decoration by: Thorsten Sabel
MPAA Rating: None.
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
Release Date: March 18, 2014
Visits: 127
