Monday, January 26, 2015

I have a hard time picturing her enjoying loneliness.

Nymphomaniac (Director’s Cut) - 4/5
It’s a very quiet and deliberate movie where two very different people trade stories that alternate between graphic sex and read-alongs of Wikipedia entries.  It’s surprising in how casual it tells its tale – there’s no rush to a conclusion, it never gets beyond a certain pace. The bodies feel factual more than erotic. It gets graphic – very graphic – but I think for a reason: to convince us she’s evil. In this, I think the movie acts as a bit of a cultural prudish-ness test – oh, you can handle this? Well, what if we took it a little further… Trying to force you to find something to be offended by. But it’s not evil. The bodies aren’t evil, the sex isn’t evil – love is the evil thing. Sex is natural while “love distorts things.” Love takes people away. She’s proud of what she does, but not what it leads to. So she becomes in the end an addict in reverse – someone who doesn’t demand to have, but who demands not to have. 

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