A word of advice for anyone thinking of watching this film - don't come into it expecting to be turned on. This film is not only unerotic, it is anti-erotic - the sex in this film is not the sex you'll find in pornography, any more than the violence in this film is the same as the violence in Die Hard. This is not a film about sex - it is, rather, a film about sexuality. Also, make no mistake about it, this is one film. Nymphomaniac may be split into two volumes for the sake of marketing, but it is one work and should be viewed as a whole. Don't let the length put you off (to use a rather apt phrase) - this is on Trier's longest film yet, but it feels about half the length of most of his other works.
I said before that this is a film about sexuality - more precisely, it is about the transgressive, destructive potential of sexuality. At one point, Jo - the main character - is forced to attend a support group for sex addicts. She introduces herself with the words, "My name is Jo, and I am a nymphomaniac." She refuses to identify as a sex addict, insisting instead on the older, more romantic term. But there is also a qualitative difference - Jo does not fit the stereotype of the poor, innocent woman with daddy issues who sleeps around to get approval and a sense of self-worth. She fucks because she loves to fuck. When she is pressed by the support group to admit that there is something wrong with her, she retorts, "I love myself. I love my cunt. And I love my filthy, sinful lust." Throughout the film, Jo insists on the validity of her sex drive, although of course her character is not that simple. She carries a great deal of self-loathing with her, judging herself very harshly for her faults, but she submits no noone's judgement but her own. The only exception to this is the self-proclaimed "asexual" played by Stellan Skarsgald (and if you're wondering why I put the term asexual in quotation marks - watch the film). Ironically, Skarsgald's character does not condemn Jo, instead validating her own argument that "all that makes me different from other people is that I have always demanded more from the sunset". The centre of the film is Jo's status as a transgressive individual - her excessive desire for sex is part of it, but more important is the fact that this is sex divorced from love and procreation. The idea of a character who is fundamentally at odds with society is a running theme in von Trier's films - his characters are often isolated, be it by social circumstances (Dancer in the Dark, Dogville), by mental illness (Melancholia, Antichrist) or, as in Jo's case, by uncontrollable sexuality. Von Trier seems fascinated by the outsider, and over the course of this film Jo is an outsider on many levels. At school, she forms a club of girls who use promiscuity as a weapon against the social codes of love and procreation; later, she becomes involved in the outlaw sexuality of the sadist K, to the eventual destruction of her family life. Finally, she becomes a debt collector, an outlaw of the classic, criminal variety. She is another of von Trier's existential rebels, but what makes the film a cut above von Trier's other work is that she is far more complex than that.
In his other films, von Trier's protagonists - while well-written - have been there to serve a role or illustrate an idea, and as such they tend to be quite one-dimensional. With Jo, though, he has created a character who is complex enough to be a real person - analyse her how you will, she is impossible to pin down or categorise, and that is what makes her special. I could go on for hours about this film, but I'll leave it with one final word - this may well be von Trier's crowning acheivement.
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