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Get Past the Sex and There is a Good Movie Here (Vol I, Director's Cut)

posted 9 years ago by Eric266
13 replies | jump to latest

If you are offended by graphic sex and nudity, then this movie is not for you.

However, if you are interested in a dark, brooding, character-driven story and can excuse the gratuitous nudity and sexual situations (and they are very gratuitous), then you will enjoy this film. Ironically, the main character, played by Charlotte Gainsborg, isn't even the most compelling character. Heck, she's not even the most compelling actress playing Joe. Stacy Martin plays Joe as a teenager and 20 something, and she does an amazing job of showing Joe's transformation during her formative years. There are some amazing performances by Christian Slater and Uma Thurman that just grabbed me. Slater as Joe's father is both loving and tragic and his scenes in the hospital are heartrending. (I wish there had been more scenes involving Joe and her parents because I believe it would have given more weight to the character.) Thurman's cameo as the wife of one of Joe's sexual partners is just shocking in its awkwardness. Parading her children around in front of their father and his mistress (Joe) was really harsh and Uma played the wife as both angry and pathetic. I've never been a real fan of hers, but she does some top-notch acting here. Stellan Skarsgard's character doesn't have much to do but listen to Joe and throw out some pearls of wisdom. The actor is wasted, but he does lend some gravitas to the proceedings. Even Shai LaBeouf, who I can barely tolerate, does a pretty good job here as the one man in Joe's life who she actually thinks she could care for.

I understand people's aversion to the sex and their discomfort with it. If you believe this is porn, then I guess for you, it is. No one can really say what is and isn't porn since we all have our individual views on sexuality (even the Supreme Court has struggled with this definition.) Personally, I think the sex and nudity actually detracted from the overall message. There is a really good story and I think it gets lost in the controversy over the explicitness of the sex. If you can't accept that a nymphomaniac is going to have a lot of degrading and humiliating sexual situations, then avoid the film because you are missing the forest for the trees. Sex can be loving, it can be embarrassing, and it can be degrading. No one goes through life without at least one really bad sexual experience. Nymphomanic depicts these realities in stark, unwavering contrast. Its a punch in the gut, but it is part of Joe's story and we would not appreciate her journey without it.

My memory foam pillow says it can't remember my face. I can tell its lying.

[–] lazarillo 9 years ago

Damn straight. People cannot get past the sex though. They don't seem to understand that if this were a "porno", people like you and me would hardly waste much time defending it or extolling its virtues. Go find the IMDB site for "Big Black D**ks in Little White Chicks" and see how many people even admit to watching that, let alone writing paragraphs about it.

I don't necessarily agree the sex and nudity distract from the story, and I actually appreciate that element. But that is just not WHY I liked it. There's a big difference between having a real nice restaurant meal followed by a dessert with some tasty frosting and sitting it home sucking down frosting out of an aerosol can. People who can't distinguish between the two or insist the whole dinner was ruined by the frosting are ones who are REALLY obsessed with "frosting" in my not-so-humble opinion.

"Let be be finale of seem/ The only emperor is the Emperor of Ice Cream"

[–] Eric266 9 years ago

Agreed. The sex didnt bother me at all but i know it bothers a lot of people. Its just people not being able to see the forest for the trees. As you said THEY are the ones obsessed with it and cant get past it. Sex is everything that makes us who we are. Its loving, messy, sexy, dirty, caring, violent, pleasureable, painful, etc.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jon_lajoie 9 years ago

While I can understand some peoples desire for subtlety when it comes to sex, I think there are just some subjects where being open and honestly brutal is much more effective.

I...drink...your...MILKSHAKE!

I DRINK IT UP!!!

[–] archyarchyarchy 9 years ago

People do not have an aversion of sex. Remember we live in an age where many people believe that its okay to have multiple sex partners, pornography isn't bad, virgins or abstinent people are losers, people shouldn't expect love from their sexual relationships, and mainstream shows incorporate more aggressive sex scenes than ever before. One of the main reasons this film has garnered so much attention is due the implication of the film's title and its sexual content. If we lived in a society that was averse to sex, this movie would garner as much attention as a new Christian film starring Kirk Cameron.

Seeing as you "get" this film, I would think you'd understand this. I'd think you'd understand what makes "porn" porn. People don't hate this movie because they hate sex or porn. Many people seek out this movie purely because they want to see sex done in the pretense of an art film. Some people want to see it because they are fans of the director or at least aware of his use of nudity in films. The point I'm trying to make here is that no anti-porn person stumbles upon this film. So the negative reviews of this film are from those who like sex in movies.

So what bothers people about films like Nymphomaniac is that they can't "get off" on it. They can't get off because the lead woman (although conventionally attractive) is too be pitted. Much like our modern day obsession with stripping love from sex but at the same time claiming meaningless sex can be empowering. How can sex be nothing and everything at the same time? It can't and that's Joe's (as well as society's) problem. "Getting off" has become the entire point of sex in modern society; way above actual emotional intimacy with another person. So if the viewers can't "get off" than the film isn't sexy and fails. But since making sex unsexy is the point of the film, their hatred for the film validates its actual meaning.

[–] Jerry-137 9 years ago

Achy3 - You might have hit the head on the nail. Sort of a reverse of the reverse osmosis of the brain operating in a semi-vacuum. IOW the opposite of an opposite meaning that had no valid meaning to begin with.

**************************************
My favorite: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

[–] robbystoner 9 years ago

Yup. I agree with most of this.

I am actually not sure why some people who post negative comments about Nymph went to see this film in the first place. They knew very well they weren't going to see a Victoria's Secret model get down and dirty and pole dance.

Can this really be the end..to be stuck inside of mobile
with the Memphis blues again.

[–] tgemberl 9 years ago

"The point I'm trying to make here is that no anti-porn person stumbles upon this film."

I haven't seen the film, so I could be wrong. But it seems like you are kind of assuming that people know in advance whether something will be "porn" and make their choice to see it based on that. But I'm guessing most people who saw this film just expected an "art house" film of some sort. Some were unprepared for the amount of sex they found in it and reacted negatively. I don't think you can draw the conclusion that everyone "wants to get off" when they see sex in a film.

While I haven't seen it, I agree that quite a few people appear to have missed the emotional subtleties in it. I don't think Charlotte Gainsbourg would be in a sex exploitation film. Maybe if the film had been more arousing, some of the people who wrote bad reviews would've taken secret pleasure in parts of it. But they might still have posted negative reviews. Their negative reaction doesn't necessarily come from an inability to "get off" from it.

"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice."

[–] robbystoner 9 years ago

I think based on the marketing campaign and the posters and so on, I think people sort of knew what they might be in for.

I personally got the film and got the human aspects to nymphomania and posted mostly positive comments and reviews. But still, I wasn't prepared for some of the more implied BSDM stuff and did turn my eyes and looked the other way at certain parts of some scenes.(It didn't take away from the understanding the characters or film). I did the same thing for some scenes in Antichrist. It doesn't mean I didn't like the films and am not a fan of Von Tier. I just didn't want to watch those few seconds.

What I fail to understand is some people's strange reasoning and brains. Lets be honest, pornography on the internet is huge viewing. Certain categories such as a%$l are also very popular with "hetero" males who watch it and have no problem watching it. But I get the impression some of these people also post on here very negative reviews of this film because of the graphic scenes. That I can't figure out. They have no problem watching an aggressive implied non-consensual sexual act (that could possibly result it lots of pain and physical discomfort) done to women when watching online porn but they have a problem watching some of the scenes in this film which were all supposedly consensual sexual acts. How does that make any sense?

Can this really be the end..to be stuck inside of mobile
with the Memphis blues again.

[–] tgemberl 9 years ago

robbystoner,
I do think people can be very conflicted about sex. I have to admit I was highly aroused by one movie that I would be ashamed to admit I saw. I do genuinely believe it was a trashy movie. It was an exploitation film, unlike this one that appears to be dealing with some genuine human issues.

So I guess the lesson I draw is that we as humans have two impulses that can be in conflict: the impulse to enjoy pleasure and the impulse to control ourselves, to do what we think is right. People who enjoy something on some level can also be offended by it.

I suppose it could be true that for some of those conflicted people, they would have been less likely to pan the film if they got more sensual pleasure from it. But in that case, my guess is they wouldn't have admitted to seeing it at all, as in my case.

Does that make sense to you?

"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice."

[–] HaraldBluetooth 9 years ago

Thurman's cameo as the wife of one of Joe's sexual partners is just shocking in its awkwardness. Parading her children around in front of their father and his mistress (Joe) was really harsh and Uma played the wife as both angry and pathetic.

I percieved it completely differently and thought it was the most humorous thing I have watched for a long time. Except maybe in the famous Cyrano de Bergerac nose monologue never have so many snarky insults been delivered in such a short time.

Which brings me to think that Seligman, bring a literate, is actually just making the whole story up in his head, why the fly fishing metaphor and references to eastern orthodoxy.

[–] johnwakeman-1 9 years ago

Get past the sex and you are left with a load of pretentious tosh.

[–] cartoongirls 9 years ago

This film is Cinematic Poetry.

Yes, there's a lot of sex, but don't forget that this is a story about a nymph. I don't consider this to be porn at all and the entire film never induced sexual arousal in me. It was moving, in an entirely different way. My favorite act would be "Mrs. H". It was both funny, sad, and disturbing.
Analyze the film and you'll find it's been well thought out and contains tons of symbolism, questions about morality, and what I liked the most:

For every sexual experience Joe tells, Seligman provides an allegory to nature. It starts of with fishing, but later includes more complex allegories such as the Fibonacci sequence which is used twice. In each case Seligman attempts to remove Joe's guilt by presenting similarities to nature. Human beings are part of nature after all.