*** Content Warning: Spoilers and Extremely Graphic Descriptions of Sex, Abortion, Sexual Violence, and Other Things ***

So let’s talk about Nymphomaniac: Volumes I and II.  If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to have major plot points revealed, stop reading this now, go to Netflix (U.S. only), put both movies (preferably the director’s cuts) in your instant watch queue, and watch them back to back.

(3 to 4 hours later)

So you’ve done that, right?  Good.  Last chance. I will be going into detail so don’t say you weren’t warned.

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Intense, right?  Super-talky, very graphic, often boring and … a host of other things.  Lars von Trier, the “bad boy” of Danish filmmaking, certainly packs a lot of stuff in his movies, doesn’t he?  That’s why I want to slow things down and take apart some important parts of this film I think get glossed over or aren’t discussed at all.

Many people hang with the film, right up to the ending, whereby they then dismiss the film, the filmmaker, and the impeccable ending.  Let’s hear what some people have to say.

“Von Trier’s cynical statement and sledgehammer of an ending could have worked it was executed in a better way. Also, the ending would not have been nearly as frustrating (and might have been able to really work) if Seligman wasn’t such an interesting and engaging character. Seligman was very well written and performed. … Von Trier tries to play a bleak joke on the audience and make a grand statement about humanity, but instead of laughing and being enlightened we are enraged.”

“But then – and here I breathe a rather heavy sigh – Von Trier just couldn’t let well enough alone. The final 90 seconds of film betray everything that came before it. And not in a way that makes logical sense within the film’s context. The characters just suddenly behave completely out of character, and the gentle, well-earned ending is stepped on. After four hours of rough, dark psychological analysis and eventual hints at empathy and even redemption, Von Trier – possibly because he just can’t help himself – raises a big middle finger to the audience. I don’t want to reveal what happens, but the final scene is enough to enrage.”

“Which leads to an absolutely awful ending in which Von Trier decides that for all his talk of liberation and free-mindedness, he’s at heart a cynic, and not a particularly original one. Seligman tells Joe that she should not be as hard on herself as she has been throughout the telling, that the choices she made for desire are only criticized by society because she is a woman, and that if she were a man, the world would still have a place for her. This is true, and not a bad point, but then Von Trier can’t leave well enough alone. He can’t help but give us one big, sensationalistic, exploitative trick, and it’s so obnoxious and sneering that you want to take the film and throw it against the wall. Von Trier is so talented and has so many things to say, but at the key moment, he’ll always back away, sniveling, sniggering along. The four hours of the Nymphomaniac films contain countless memorable moments and some scenes of sublime perfection. But Von Trier can’t stop there. He keeps trying to pick at you. At the end of Nymphomaniac, Part Two, he picks once too often and ruins just about everything that came before. There is much to see here. But I’m pretty sure I don’t want to see any of it again.”

So obviously many people didn’t like the ending.  Okay, point taken.  But the ending is absolutely appropriate, logical, and warranted.

And no, it’s not all gonna be “Pro Joe” up in this post.

Joe (played by Charlotte Gainsbourgh) is the self-described nymphomaniac of the title.  Seligman (played by Stellan Skarsgård) is her would be rescuer and insufferably loquacious, seemingly asexual interlocutor.

Joe (to Seligman): “Whenever I’ve told other men about experiences, episodes in my sex life, it was easy to see that they became quite excited.”

Seligman: “I got excited.”

Joe: “Yes, about the mathematical crap, not about the story.  What kind of a person are you actually?”

Seligman: “I … You wouldn’t know.”

Joe: “No, but I can guess.  Why didn’t I get that earlier?  The fact you don’t get excited over my dirty stories is because you can’t relate to them.  You’ve never been with a woman.”

Seligman: “That’s quite accurate.  Not with a man either.”

Joe: “Are you sorry about that?”

Seligman: “Well yeah, but … out of curiosity.  Not out of lust, as you would think.  I consider myself … asexual.  Of course I … experimented with masturbation when I was a teenager, but … it didn’t do much for me.  So there’s nothing sexual about me.”

She often doesn’t give herself a pass on her selfishness; he often tries to say if she were a man society wouldn’t have a problem with her actions.  They both get it wrong.  If we look to the actual script, I’ll explain why.

Let’s look at the “chocolate sweets” contest on the train, where a young Joe and her friend compete to see who can sleep with the most men on a train.  The prize is that bag of chocolates.  Joe’s losing the contest to her friend (“B”), who offers this in response about one man on the train neither one of them have slept with.

Joe: “Well, I’ve already lost anyway.”

“B”: “I’m willing to give you five extra points … if you can get that one in there.”

Joe: (speaking to Seligman) “I decided, perhaps a bit desperately, that the only thing standing between me and the bag of chocolate sweets, was an unequivocal provocation of this man.”

Let’s look at how Joe “wins,” shall we?

Joe, to Man on Train: “Well, I understand now.”

Man on Train: “What is it you understand?”

Joe: “Why you didn’t have sex with us.”

Man on Train: “It wasn’t because I didn’t want to.”

Joe: “So you’ve been saving your sperm.  For weeks. I mean, you and your wife are … seem to be at an age where every attempt to become pregnant has to be taken very seriously.”

Man on Train: “Right now, my … my sperm quality is at its peak, I’m told.”

Joe: (Initiates fellatio.)

Man on Train: “ Please … I’m begging you, please don’t.”

Joe: “It’s okay.”

Man on Train: “Please don’t.”

Joe: “You’ve been as horny as hell.  But you wouldn’t give up your load.”

Man on Train: “Please don’t.” (Comes from fellatio.)  “Oh, fuck.  Wow.”

Remember one of my earliest posts on this blog?  Yeah, Joe is a rapist.  Sorry, there’s no other way around it.  He tells her no less than three times to stop … and she doesn’t … just so she can win a fucked-up candy contest.  His consent doesn’t matter to her at all.  She uses his sexual readiness for his wife against him.  If she were a member of a fraternity, she’d be getting freshmen women drunk to “score points” (rape them) in contests with other frat brothers.

Chalk one up in the “No Joe” column.

Even Joe has an inkling that what she did wasn’t okay, but never quite seems to connect the dots.  Then Seligman comes along and attempts to downplay the sexual assault.

Joe (after one of Seligman’s digressions): “Is that your only comment?”

Seligman: “What else … What else do you want me to say?”

Joe: “That I behaved reprehensibly.  That already my actions exemplify that I’m a … I’m a terrible human being.”

Seligman: “That’s not the way I see it.  On the contrary, I saw it as a … a very pleasurable and humorous story.  Not at all sad, or … or weighed down by sin.  Like all that talk about Pandora’s Box.”

Joe: “I’ve consciously used and hurt others … for the sake of my own satisfaction.  And what I’ve told you so far only begins to suggest that.”

Seligman: “But when you told the story, you were cheerful.  Full of humor.  It wasn’t as if you embarked on some tragic tale.”

Well, Seligman, most rapists don’t see their actions as rape.  If they have any inkling that their actions weren’t wanted, they hand wave it away as “buyer’s remorse” or “insensitivity” or “sinfulness” (but never quite identify the sexual assault as exactly that).

Chalk one up in the “No Seligman” column, for that matter.

And, no, the fact that Joe is raped more than once in this film doesn’t excuse it.  What, you say?  Joe is raped more than once?  Sure she is.  Let’s look at these descriptions.

Joe (to Seligman): “I kind of knew this boy, J, who had a moped.  So in my eyes he was rather sophisticated.  I was 15, and perhaps my girlish, romantic expectations were a bit high.  But he had good, strong hands.  I liked his hands.”

Joe (to J): “Hello?”

J (to Joe) “Hi.”

Joe: “Hi.  If I asked you to take my virginity would that be a problem?”

J: “No, I don’t see a problem.”

Joe: “So, um … Where shall I go?”

J: “It’s the fucking carburetor.  I just can’t work it out, you imagine that?”

Joe: “That’s not very good.”

J: “Hmm?”

Joe: “It’s not very good.”

J: “No, it bloody isn’t.  Ruins the whole idea of having a moped.  You should probably take off your knickers, yeah?”

Joe (to Seligman): “He shoved his cock inside me and humped me three times.  Then he turned me over like a sack of potatoes.  Then he humped me five times in the ass.  I never forgot those two humiliating numbers.”

Seligman: “Three and five?  Those are Fibonacci numbers.”

Joe: “That may be.  In any case, it hurt like hell.  I swore I’d never sleep with anyone again.” …

So how would you describe that?  Youthful exploration?  Mutual pleasure?  At no point did Joe say she wanted vaginal and anal sex.  She just said “take my virginity” which could encompass a whole lot of things (deep kissing, feeling each other up [sensual or erotic massage], mutual masturbation, fingering, cunnilingus, fellatio, sixty-nine, sharing sexy stories while they masturbate in front of each other—not just PIV and anal).  J never asks Joe what she wants or what she means.  He just plunges ahead assuming whatever he does will be acceptable.

Chalk that up in the “No J” column.

After Joe embarks on a life of crime, she befriends a young minor charge, “P”, at the behest of her mentor.  She slowly but surely influences P to join her in the extortion racket.  Let’s consider P after she reaches the age of majority (adulthood).

Joe (to Seligman): “All this time all my sexual activity had stopped.  My groin was one big sore from my abuse that wouldn’t heal and made even masturbation impossible.” …

P: (Initiates sexual contact with Joe.)

Joe (to P): “Don’t.”

P: “I wanna see you.”

Joe: “Don’t.”

P: “Why?”

Joe: “Please don’t.”

P: “Why not?”

Joe: “No.  No, I have a wound.  I have a wound.”

P: “It doesn’t matter.”  (Continues sexual activity while Joe cries.)

Chalk one up in the “No P” column for failing to respect “no” five times.

Back to Joe being a rapist.  She turns to being a criminal enforcer as a lucrative career.  She has her henchmen tie one man up in a chair, pull down his pants, then she proceeds to tell this man stories to see what turns him on so she can blackmail him more effectively.  He seemingly has no sexual history.  None of her stories seem to work until she describes pedophilia.  His cock raises in response to that story.  Because he’s never actually acted on it, she feels pity for him and fellates him “as an act of mercy.”

Even though he’s a pedophile that can never act ethically on his desires, he’s still a tied up man who can’t refuse what Joe’s doing to him.

Again I ask … is this consent?

Chalk two up in the “No Joe” column.

Okay, let’s look at other ways Joe isn’t admirable.  In the extended director’s cut, she performs a self-abortion after being refused legal medical service.  The film is extremely graphic in depicting it.  Why?  Who the hell knows.  The film makes allusions to the Holocaust and argues “something” is being killed no matter your stance on this issue.  It’s not like pro-birthers need more ammunition to restrict abortion rights, so I don’t really see the point of that unless it’s to gross people out (the very opposite of safe, legal, medical abortions that aren’t even like that).

Chalk three up in the “No Joe” column.  Chalk one up in the “No von Trier” column for unnecessary moralizing.

Joe also has an interracial threesome with two black African men.  Guess what?  I’m not going to criticize that or the graphic depiction (also shown in the extended director’s cut).  I’m perfectly okay with that scene.  Put one in the “Pro Joe” column.  It’s what follows that gets my goat.

Joe (to Seligman): “I imagine the quarrel had already started on the stairs and that one or the other party had laid claim to one or the other of my holes in conflict with his negro brother’s interests.”

Seligman: “You shouldn’t use that word.  It’s not what you call politically correct.”

Joe: “‘Negro.’  Well, excuse me, but in my circles it’s always been a mark of honor to call a spade a spade.  Each time a word becomes prohibited, you remove a stone from the democratic foundation.”

Swing and a miss, white lady.  You may consider yourself a sexy diplomat for interracial relations.  But your willingness to fuck black men doesn’t give you diplomatic immunity on racism, Joe.  Those aren’t your words to use, especially when those men aren’t in the room to tell you how they feel about it.  It would be like me using the most repellant misogynistic terms to describe my sexual liaisons with women to a nonparticipant.

Chalk four up in the “No Joe” column (for thinking sex is some magic eraser for white supremacy).

This next one isn’t specifically directed at Joe, but instead von Trier for his fucked-up portrayal of BDSM.  “K” is a sadist Joe goes to see for a deeper exploration of her sexuality.

K (to Joe): “The first rule is that I don’t fuck you and that there isn’t any discussions about that.”

Joe: “Then what do you get out of it?”

K: “That’s my business and I don’t want you to mention it again.  The second rule is that we have no safe word.  Meaning that if you, uh, go inside with me, there is nothing that you can say that will make me stop any plan or procedure.”

Sorry, K.  There’s no such rule as that.  Chalk one up in the “No K” column.  Anyone can call a halt to kinky proceedings at anytime for any reason.  I don’t believe K did anything to Joe that she didn’t agree to, but his “no safe word” bullshit almost certainly means he wouldn’t have listened to many of the other women (that we see waiting for him in his hallway) that may have changed their minds once behind closed doors.

In another session, Joe blurts out what she actually wants from K.

Joe (to K): “I want your cock.”

K: “What did you say?”

Joe: “I want your cock.”

K: “No. No, you don’t.  No, you don’t. No.  What’s the matter with you today?”

Nothing in that instance, K.  She told you directly what she wants.  You don’t get to invalidate that because you don’t want to fuck her.

Joe’s able to get something out of the encounter, anyway.  She’s tied up on a couch, receiving lashes from K for her “disobedience.”

Joe (to Seligman): “I’d seen through K’s knot technique, so I was able to loosen my position a bit to move my pelvis, and thereby stimulate my clitoris against the cover of the book.”

That’s two in the “Pro Joe” column.

So you can see this is not a biased review in favor of all things Joe and von Trier.  This character has massive faults, has done horrible things, and has had horrible things done to her.  Now back to the ending.

Here’s what Joe says, directly to Seligman, toward the end of the movie.

Joe (to Seligman): “Let me just say that telling my story as you insisted … or permitted … has put me at ease.  At this moment my addiction is very clear to me … and I’ve come to a decision.  Even though only one in a million, as my dubious therapist said, succeed in … mentally, bodily … and in her heart of ridding herself of her sexuality, this is now my goal.”

Seligman: “But is that a life worth living?”

Joe: “It’s the only way I can live it.  I will stand up against all odds … just like a deformed tree on a hill.  I will muster all my stubbornness …my strength … my masculine aggression.  But most of all I want to say thanks to my new, and maybe first friend.  Thank you, Seligman … who perhaps is happy when all is said and done.” …

Joe: “If I may, I’d like to sleep now.”

Seligman: “I’ll make sure you won’t be disturbed.  Good night, Joe.”

Joe: “Good night, Seligman.”

She goes to sleep in his apartment.  The next scene we see is of her sleeping.  Seligman enters her room, pulls back the covers to reveal her semi-nude body while holding his penis in his hand.  He starts feeling her ass while beginning to masturbate himself.  She wakes up.  He gives her a smile, like he can’t help himself.

Joe (to Seligman): “No!”

(She grabs her gun, points it at him, and the screen fades to black.)

Seligman (to Joe): “But you … you’ve fucked thousands of men.”

(We hear the gun go off, Seligman’s body thudding to the floor, and her running out of the apartment.)

I can’t speak to people’s disappointment about von Trier’s “bleak joke on the audience,” “grand statement about humanity,” “big middle finger to the audience,” or “[ruining] just about everything that came before.”  It’s like people edited out all of the nonconsensual fuckery, much of which Joe was responsible for herself, that ran throughout the film, then got mad because they couldn’t spot the rapist hiding in plain sight.  If you think Joe’s reaction is extreme, what would you call a man groping a sleeping woman while whipping his dick out and starting to jack off?  Attempted rape and sexual assault are extreme, too.  Just sayin’.  It’s also absolutely certain that Seligman understood Joe because she said to him, directly and unambiguously, that she was going to try to remain celibate for the rest of her life (meaning no sex for Joe with anyone … ever again).  Even if she never indicated her celibacy plans to anyone else, Seligman still can’t infer sexual consent from a sleeping woman.

In no way am I saying that someone who committed sexual assault herself got what was coming to her.  Obviously I’m not saying that.  What I am saying is that rapists are often undetected.  That’s how many rapists work, making us think they wouldn’t harm a fly until it’s too late, trying to make us believe their transgressions aren’t actually that.  This is completely and utterly true to life and kudos have to be given to von Trier for realistically depicting how sexual assault often actually occurs.  Who knows how many unsuspecting women Seligman had pulled his “asexual hermit” act on?  Even if this is Seligman’s first time attempting rape, he attempts it, making him a rapist.  For that matter, who knows how much rape the other characters committed in between the consensual sex they were having?  We don’t know Seligman’s a rapist until it’s too late, just like his victim (or victims) wouldn’t.  This may come as a shocking realization to many people, but we can’t know who will rape because rapists go out of their way to make themselves seems harmless before they offend.  Unintentional kudos have to be given for showing that women offenders like Joe and P can disregard consent just as often as male offenders like Seligman, J, and K.  There are no heroes or heroines and there is no redemption to be found throughout the film.