It’s rare when a film manages to descend itself into the levels of atmospherical depravity seen in the 1975 film Salo. Lars von Trier, the director of Nymphomaniac, has achieved something very few filmmakers can attest to. He’s created a film that could hold its own in the same ‘ fucked up movie festival’ as Salo.

The cinematography in this film is aesthetically artistic throughout. The visuals combine with the score to create a captivating portrait of the perverse mind of a Nymphomaniac. The same eire tune plays throughout the film because there is only one thing on this woman’s mind (sex). The director is fearless, he had no intentions of hiding the human figure. Every body part is up on the canvas. Nymphomaniac is completely unapologetic. There’s no beating around the bush in this movie (or maybe there is).

I’m writing this review now and I can’t remember the protagonist’s name. Her name isn’t especially relevant. Just as her name isn’t relevant during her sexual encounters. She’s using men. They’re not having their way with her, she’s having her way with them. The protagonist is depicted as cold and uninspired because she only feels alive when she is having sex. It’s a sickness. It’s a mental illness. She’s not only a nympho, but also a maniac. She’s lost in this world where there are more important things than sex, but she doesn’t feel like she belongs in this realm of regular people. In a scene where she’s on a date, at a restaurant, the table is bare. She’s not eating, she’s not drinking (she’s hiding spoons in her vag). She’s only ever hungry for sex.

There’s no emotional connection, at all, to the men she fucks, and when she fucks the man she loves, she gets no pleasure from it. It’s a play on the way society dictates when it’s appropriate for women to be sexual. Her friend suggests to her, as a teenager, that ” love is the missing ingredient of sex.” Our protagonist shows, through her actions, that she not-so-respectfully, disagrees. In her world, love is fake, and sex is real. Love is ambiguous, and sex is concrete. “Love is sex, combined with jealousy.” She says.

She makes sex pleasurable on her own terms. She doesn’t need to conform to the “love narrative;” where sex is only beautiful and socially acceptable when two people are in a loving relationship. She doesn’t bother with the “drunken hook-up narrative;” where a girl can appropriately want sex once she’s “lost her inhibitions,” or when the guy can conveniently be blamed the next day for “taking advantage” (she’s completely sober the entire movie). She even the refuses the “woman’s body is a precious, beautiful, gentle, divine temple narrative” by succumbing herself to painful BDSM spanking sessions. These bondage scenes suggest that she even rejects the “feminist” narrative. She finds being dominated by men sexy. Maybe she’s rebellious against society because society is too subtle. All women feel pressure from society to behave a certain way, but if you’re going to try and tell this nymphomaniac what to do, then you might as well say it forcefully and convince her painfully, because at least then, she can get some sick, twisted, erotic pleasure out of it. This women is the complete embodiment of female rebelliousness. She’s almost a christ-like figure, because she’s burdened with all the sins and secret desires of woman-kind, and she’s a victim of societies’ resentment for female lust. There is a lot beneath the surface in this film to find for yourself. It’s all a big metaphor for female sexuality.

This is actually a sad film. I wouldn’t call it pornography, as some have accused it of being. This film isn’t meant to arouse you (especially if your a man). In fact, its more likely to repulse people (too many dicks). The film’s creators are antagonizing the world. It wants to be talked about and discussed, not kept secret. This film throws mankind’s deepest insecurities into open space (Your mothers, sisters, and daughters are all really horny!) This movie will definitely be banned in many countries. Nymphomaniac is simply a film about sex. It’s about what sex is when you take everything else in the world away.

Rating: I watched both volumes in one sitting and think I would have given this movie 5 stars if it was edited down to one 3 hour movie. But it does deserve 4 stars. It does get kind of boring at times but the last scene in volume 2 was a brilliant way to end the movie. In terms of fucked up movies, they don’t get more fucked up than this. I’m going to give it 5 marquis de sades out of 5, meaning that it matches the cinematic depravity of Salo, which in my opinion, is the gold standard of fucked up most-people-can’t-sit-through-them movies.

– Josiah hamilton