Lars von Trier has ever been a censor-baiting director and he seemed to reach new extremes of sex and sadistic violence with his ANTICHRIST. His new NYMPHOMANIAC films go even further, pushing the boundaries of on-screen sexuality with pornographic depictions of coupling and the like, so these films are only recommended for the least prudish of viewers.

NYMPHOMANIAC VOL. I is certainly an interesting and intriguing viewing experience and would remain so even if you took away all of the gratuitous sex and sexual situations involved. It's a character study of a woman who is first discovered battered and broken in a shady alleyway. The quiet and bookish Stellan Skarsgard brings her back to his apartment, where she tells him her life story up until the halfway mark. Skarsgard has long been a watchable presence in cinema and he actually turned out to be my favourite character in this. Although he's present only on the sidelines, I loved the way his character brought theory and academia to the story, drawing parallels with various historical and religious stories. His relationship with Charlotte Gainsbourg feels naturalistic and spiky.

The rest of the film is a mixed bag. Some of it is repulsive (involving the young underage girl),and other parts are depressing (the Christian Slater character). Shia LaBeouf gives a surprisingly good performance (despite the dodgy accent) as a character of depth and humanity which you wouldn't believe based on his first scene. The set-piece sequence with an outstanding Uma Thurman is a definite highlight here and one of the cringiest/most awkward things I've ever watched on screen. Much of this film rests on the shoulders of the young and slight Stacy Martin, an actress who exudes an icy fragility throughout, and watching her character growing up on screen is quite the experience. VOL. II takes the story down ever-darkening pathways, and must be watched in conjunction with this instalment (like KILL BILL, the film was only broken into two parts due to the length).

Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) finds an unconscious and beaten Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) in an alley near his home. She refuses to go to the hospital or contact the cops. He takes her to his home. She tells him about her life as an nymphomaniac which he compares to fly fishing and other ideas. Joe's father (Christian Slater) was understanding of her curiosity as a child. At 15, she (Stacy Martin) was eager to lose her virginity to Jerôme (Shia LaBeouf). Her friend B (Sophie Kennedy Clark) opens her up to sexual promiscuity. She encounters Jerôme again. Mr. H (Hugo Speer) leaves his family and Mrs. H (Uma Thurman) brings their three boys to show them their father's mistress.

It's around 'Chapter two Jerôme' that the movie lost me. I don't know if it's the whole movie is basically Gainsbourg telling a story. Or that the movie keeps using letters for character names. I get why the bulk of the men get letters but her best friend needs a name. I come to the realization that this could be all manufactured by Gainsbourg's character. The movie loses all the tension and the immediacy. It becomes a sexually-explicit, slow, boring manufactured thing whether she's being truthful or not. Lars von Trier is inventive but the story meanders. This is an interesting movie but not a compelling one. Scenes that should be raw like Mrs. H is more comical than intense.

Apparently this film has received considerable attention. Many of today's most visible actors appear. I watched it because you have to admit the title is a bit provocative. It is hard core pornography which has been elevated because a story line and good production value has been thrown in. It involves a young woman who has been badly beaten and thrown in an alley. She is discovered by a man, an intellectual, who lives alone. His life gets more interesting as she relates the story of the rise of her sexuality. He finds parallels along the way to her sexuality in more mundane subjects like fly fishing. We are then treated to a series of encounters which she has growing up and afterword. She has a fixation but there is one real rule and that is that she gets to call the shots. For two and a half hours this thing goes on. There are very graphic scenes all along the way, but there never seems to be much of a point, other than to display her as a sad character (though she would never admit this). I guess this goes on to a second part which I probably will not see.