December 7, 2014 -- With “Nymphomaniac” as a title you expect some sex and nudity, but not necessarily sadomasochism, beatings and humiliation, but this film has all that, and more, in spades. After watching “Melancholia,” I was not anxious to see another film by director Lars Von Trier, let alone two of them, back to back (Volume 1 is one hour, 57 minutes and Volume 2 is two hours and three minutes long) totaling four hours. I watched the two films back to back in one sitting, and surprisingly, it did a good job of holding my attention all the way through.

You could call this film artistic porn, but it really comes across as trashy entertainment. I could have maybe taken it a bit seriously except for the film's final scene, which I won't spoil. When the camera pans back to the door of the room, instead of fading to black, I thought to myself, “No, Lars, don't do that,” but of course he did, and that changed the whole tone of the film for me from something about actual human feelings to a trashy black comedy about sex. This is sort of like mixing the movies “Shame” and “Porky's.”

You expect to see the human race at its worst when you see a movie by Lars Von Trier, and this movie shows you people who are, for the most part, human garbage, but at least this film has a sense of humor about it. Unlike some of Von Trier's movies, this one doesn't seem to take itself seriously, at least it did not seem to.

The plot is basically a series of stories thrown together which are only loosely related to each other. The stories are told by Joe, a woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg of “Melancholia”) and are loosely linked to objects in the room in which Joe tells the stories. There are scenes of childhood sexual behavior, which seem to be either based on some discredited theories of Sigmund Freud, or the kind of fantasy a pedophile might have (coincidentally, this film has one of the most sympathetic portrayals of a pedophile I've ever seen).

Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård of “The Avengers”) finds Joe injured in an alley. He takes her to his home nearby. While recovering from her injuries, Joe, a nymphomaniac, tells Seligman stories about her life from childhood the present. The stories are chapters related to objects, like a fish hook, music and pictures on the wall. As a narrative device, this is weak, since the connections between the objects in the room and the stories they are supposed to relate to are tenuous, almost nonexistent. This sort of thing works better as a literary device in a novel. It is ill-suited to cinema.

The level of detail in the sex scenes, however, is extraordinary. The apparent sight of a penis sliding in and out of a vagina is certainly something I've never seen in a film before, since I don't watch porn. The film also shows many closeups of vaginas and quite a variety of penises, but that's a long story, if you know what I mean. There is also some very graphic scenes showing the act of fellatio. There are a lot of sex scenes in this movie, in graphic detail with full male and female nudity.

The scenes I found hardest to watch, all puns aside, were the scenes of Joe being severely beaten by a sadist called K (played by Jaime Bell of “Man on a Ledge”). She is hit hard in the face with a weighted, . Her bare bottom is severely whipped with a riding crop, and worse, with 40 lashes by K wielding a cat o' nine tails. In the movie, Joe gets up after these beatings and just goes home like it is no big deal.

If this was real, if these scenes were serious, she'd be in a hospital for an extended stay from severe injuries, if she survived at all, and she'd be scarred for life. That this level of brutality is passed off so blithely is another indication that this movie is not serious. Joe gets severely beaten in other scenes, too, but in this movie she proves to be as indestructible as Wiley Coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons.

This movie makes the incredible claim that Joe is actually a strong, independent person, despite willingly enduring these many abuses, which appear instead to be outright humiliations. I suspect this dialog was inserted into the film to make it appear less misogynistic. This claim might be a more believable claim if Joe enjoyed the sexual experiences, but in many scenes, she appears bored, and sometimes, she feels nothing, and says so. In some scenes, she does enjoy sex, however.

The claim that Joe is strong and independent would also be a more believable claim if she achieved self esteem, but clearly almost no self-esteem, at least during 99 percent of the film. It is hard to maintain self-esteem when you are being beaten up and urinated upon, which is also shown in graphic detail. I'm sure there are those who will say this is a misogynistic movie. It would appear they have a lot easier argument than those who claim it isn't misogynistic. Of course, the men in the film are no prizes either, but most of them don't have to endure the abuse that Joe does.

Since I couldn't really take this movie seriously, I perceived it to be a hard core sex comedy masquerading as an art film. It also has liberal elements of pornography, that is, it tries to dress up raw sex with social commentary to make it look less like straight porn, which is a common legal strategy in the porn industry.

In one scene, Joe delivers a blistering charge of hypocrisy against a therapist, and members of her group therapy meeting. It isn't all that convincing. It sounds like a speech written by a pseudo intellectual trying to justify lifestyle choices which are very difficult to defend. It is kind of a half-hearted argument, really. Those who claim this film is not pornographic have a tougher argument than those who claim it isn't.

So, as an art film, I don't buy it, but viewed as a trashy, soap opera and absurdest black comedy with pornographic overtones, it is entertaining in its own way. The acting in the film is excellent, especially by Charlotte Gainsbourg and by Uma Thurman, who dominates a brief, but powerful scene as a wife and mother betrayed by her husband. The makeup effects are also quite good in the sex and battery scenes. As the late Roger Ebert would say, this is a guilty pleasure. This film rates a B.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

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