Watch Nymphomaniac: Vol. I For Free

Thanks for the memories!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

'Nymphomaniac' is a huge project written and directed by Lars von Trier. Trier has proven a controversial figure over the years, with his filmic output attracting similar contention and many awards (Shia LaBeouf, who stars as Jerome, has said about von Trier that he is 'dangerous. He scares me. And I'm only going to work now when I'm terrified.'). Trier suffers from depression, and appears to inject some of his personality into the characters. This is my first experience of his work, and I absolutely love it.A beautifully directed opening, simply featuring snow falling on an industrial landscape, water dripping from roofing, slowly reveals the beaten and broken figure of a young woman Joe. She is found by lonesome scholar, bachelor Seligman, whose quiet ways mask his erudite intelligence. When Joe stirs, she too, is very well spoken, very refined. After she refuses medical treatment, he takes her to his spacious but dilapidated home. Therein, with the falling snow outside acting as a constant backdrop, she tells him about herself. She is a self-diagnosed nymphomaniac, and despises herself for it. Using his own interests as a yardstick, Seligman interprets her self-loathing, often into something more positive. Joe's stories are divided into various chapters, sometimes resulting in her destroying lives and relationships, sometimes not. Seligman's precise and dispassionate synopsis is because he is a virgin and remains sexually unmoved by Joe's forthright, graphic accounts.Possibly the most disturbing chapter is 6. "The Eastern and the Western Church (The Silent Duck)", in which Joe visits 'K' (Jamie Bell) to assuage her never-ending sexual dependency. The violence inflicted upon her willing person is punishing and sadistic - and it comes at a heavy price: the loss of Joel and son Marcel. Here we are actually seeing the regular repercussions and personal consequences of her condition and it is horrific.'Nymphomaniac' is fascinating throughout. The playing is exemplary, the direction beautifully contrasting the ramshackle calm of Seligman's existence, and the unstoppable, often self-destructive calamity of Joe's addiction to sex. Sometimes the scenes are extremely graphic for a brief time, but such is the surrounding story and reasons for her carnal addiction, they convey the nature of her being rather than shock. There is a poetic sense of symmetry to certain events, words and statistics that ensures many things come full circle. And ultimately, that the flaws of the characters dovetail each other in a very satisfying manner.The cast list contains Charlotte Gainsburg and Stacey Martin as Joe at different ages, Stellan Skarsgård as Seligman, and features Christian Slater, Uma Thurman, William Defoe and Udo Kier amongst many other very talented, naturalistic actors. The excellent Mia Goth plays 'P' (Goth is starring in a forthcoming remake of 'Suspiria' in 2018). My only complaint would be that the actors playing young versions of the characters look unlike the older versions - that is, if everything else wasn't so perfect. And perfect isn't a word I have cause to use very often.'Nymphomaniac' was released in two parts in the UK, but has a total running time of either 241 minutes or 325 minutes, depending on whether you see the uncut version or not. It has deservedly won multiple awards, including three for Trier himself. Devoting the time to watch is an undertaking, but is worth it, because your eyes will never dare to leave the screen.

Reaching a comprehensive conclusion on the first part of Lars von Trier's "Nymphomaniac" is a grisly yet satisfying exercise. The film is generally refreshingly observationalist, in its taking a step back from what it depicts – from what I can garner, it neither glamorises nor demonises to any great extent the behaviour of the characters within. By the end, the characters have been neither punished nor rewarded for their actions. There is a very cold, empty tonality to von Trier's first Nymphomaniac volume, but this is not a criticism – the life of the film's lead, a middle aged woman who goes by the surely deliberately androgynous name of Joe (Jo), has almost entirely consisted of furrowing about trying to find that next lay with the opposite sex. She has done very little else and, despite living through the latter half of the twentieth century, not to mention possessing a gift for oration, we sense has very little else say on any other subject.The film consists almost entirely of flashback. It is Charlotte Gainsbourg playing present-tense Joe, a woman found beaten and bloodied on the concrete courtyard of an apartment block in an unspecific English locality on a rainy day. Stellan Skarsgård's Seligman, a grey suited monosyllabic neighbour from abroad, finds her en route coming home from the local shop - rather than call for help when she asks him not to, he brings her back to his dwelling so that she may recover and that is when she decides to recount her life hedonistic life-story which will lead us to this very moment.In the past, she is played by new-comer Stacy Martin, whose job it is to bring to life Joe's years of adolescence and young adulthood – one characterised by a radical outlook of anti-marriage; anti-bourgeois and anti-love on top of a demonstrating of just how much of a bohemian hedonist she really is. During this time, she will garner some menial office work; maintain a friendship with her father and have an on-off relationship with boyfriend Jerome (Shia LaBeouf). It is during these scenes that von Trier seems to combine props; attire and other mise-en-scene from the 1960's; 70's and 80's to create a very non-specific era –his shooting of it in Germany is further designed to disorientate us during the viewing.But why was she lying on the concrete, bloodied and bruised, in the first scene? Why is she deciding to tell Seligman her tale in the first place? What, precisely, is Skarsgård in relation to anything at all anyway? These are not questions von Trier answers in Volume One – indeed, they are in a sense irrelevant to the film's nucleus. But then, what of that? It seems to be that, no matter what you are talking about, be it fly-fishing; organ music or something else, you can incorporate philosophies or stances on sex into it – sex is life and life is sex and parallels can be found between the actions of a good fly-fisherman and a woman on the prowl; between the makeup of the specifics of a Johann Sebastian Bach sonata and the way a sex-addict balances their lovers. Correlations and equivalents are everywhere, if only people would just take the time out to look for them...But is this really the end of it? Perhaps one character is actually the figment of the other's imagination: a bored, single and lonely Seligman imagines he meets Joe coming home and concocts a story possessing everything he doesn't have. Moreover, perhaps a concussed Joe is still lying there in the street imagining aid from a stranger. Whatever the case, von Trier essentially allows his audience to fulfil the role of Seligman – someone who listens on in either silent awe or restrained disgust at how Joe had a sexual revelation as a young child with her friend Bea (Sophie Kennedy Clark) and decided to act on it in a way that saw her spend her teenage years as she did.Their dual-dynamic itself opens up several tins of numerous kinds of worms in its basis – the gender imbalance is a pseudo-feminist driven psychoanalytic nightmare: a clear distinction between orator and receiver, it is the woman propelling proceedings but her tale is one of often perpetual sexual humiliation as she lowers herself to playing the whore; the tart; the loser. She has nothing else in life and is one-dimensional – she recounts her experiences for the pleasure of the male, be it Seligman or the member of the audience.While they are Joe's experiences, the entire film seems to be made up of figments of Seligman's imagination: it is he who is picturing Joe in the bathroom; on the train and with on-off boyfriend Jerome – something alluded to when he tries to picture Joe studying geography although apologies for imagining it incorrectly before we carry on again. Then, there is the problem of the unreliable narrator – an issue Seligman himself even raises towards the end when he deliberately stops Joe mid-flow on account of not believing an aspect of the story she is telling. This is an odd and very disorientating moment, wherein Seligman wrestles power off the story-teller and is suddenly in command of what we play witness to.What are we left with when everything is said and done? We certainly come away feeling like we have experienced something – there is a centrepiece which I will not spoil that seems to get stuck in to whether Joe has lived a worthy life: it reaches the conclusion that she has not, for bohemianism and nymphomania is a fatuous, rotten thing which destroys your life and the lives of those around you – lives you did not even know existed. Indifference is a strange reaction to have to the film, but then loving it or hating it is very difficult. I would certainly recommend it, but with reservations.

It is too controversial that half of the viewers rate it significantly low and some significantly high, looks like a reviews war and I chose my side.. I guess part of this situation is that people that have not seen other Trier's films might not understand the style neither the notion of his attitude as a director.It is a really artistic representation of a psychological disorder. It fits well with the depression trilogy and it would be good for viewers to watch all the three of them in sequence. The trilogy handles depression through various situations. Antichrist is depression with evil notes, Melancholia is depression via loss and management of this, Nymphomaniac is depression via one's disorder, and might be even more.Totally artistic, Charlotte is bau excellent, Uma one of the same, that is brilliant, I enjoy watching it. True, the content can be very explicit, but let's not joke, it is a provocative film with a great message, and people that hide hypocritically beneath ethics should not watch films that handle the inner state of the soul.

First off I have given a high score as I don't think you can really rate a film like this; and many have given this a low score as they don't like the subject matter. It's a film about the extremes of sex, if you haven't an open mind on this subject then don't watch this film. There is a lot of graphic sex in this film, presumably to capture the authenticity of the material. But more disturbing is the subject matter, one of the themes being that men can act this way, but for women, society judges women who act in this way very differently. As a film it is slow, arty, and with considerable metaphors. Intellectual more than passionate. Nicely shot too it has to be said; along with considerable acting and direction. Personally, I find if you don't engage with the principal character, it is hard to really enjoy the film. Although it would be possible to claim that Siligman is the viewpoint character the viewer is meant to empathize with (which too a degree does work). Does the film challenge and make you think? Definitely, but it is not an easy experience, and certainly the film is overly drawn out. Also, one has to see volume two to get full understanding of the material.I liked that the film did not pull any punches and explored adult themes deeply, if not shockingly at times. However I would only recommend this for individuals that have a broad understanding of sexuality, prepared to be subjected to some pretty X rated scenes, and are fans of very arty, intellectual theater. As I said at the beginning, his is not the sort of film you can judge, you have to see it and make up your own mind.