Nymphomaniac Vol. 2 continues with the foreseeable consequences within any film that deals with the trope of addiction. Joe is, inevitably, going to try to find a higher high – or in this case a resurgent orgasm – and ultimately hit rock bottom, both of which she does. However, there are moments within this second installment that remind us of von Triar’s filmmaking capabilities as well as make the slog through the first volume almost worth it.
For starters, the discourse between Joe (Gainsbourg) and Seligman (Skarsgard) becomes a bit more tenous and Joe begins to point out the digression of Seligman’s interjections. While this is welcome, the need to criticize Seligman’s analogies begs one to wonder whether or not von Triar realized the discourse’s inanity over halfway through the filming. At the same time, there is a connection between Joe’s criticism and the underlying exploration of language employed in Volume 2. As Joe notes, “each time a word becomes prohibited you remove a stone from a democratic society.” This notion concerns Nymphomaniac insomuch as the title itself and its namesake is gender typed immediately, and the numerous men that sleep with Joe and other women throughout the series of films are seen not as sex addicts but as shills to kill time.
Granted, Joe has a lot of sex, but she is castigated for it more so than any other character. This is particularly evident in her perpetual interactions with Jerome (Shia LaBeouf). We learn in Volume 1 that Jerome took Joe’s virginity at her behest and from that point on, serendipity continues to bring them together. Her transgressions are graphically depicted, while his are not – only alluded to. More interestingly between the two is the birth of their unplanned child, Marcel. The addition of the child is an attempt to lend credence to Joe’s addiction, as he signifies her descent to the bottom. In a much weaker version of a scene from Antichrist, the female protagonist is torn between innate desire and culturally constructed duty as mother. While Antichrist is a better film as a whole, von Triar illustrates the schizophrenic nature of the feminine, forced to be pure, sexually charged, and maternal. The gravity of this commentary is doubled when we learn through Joe’s brief mention that Jerome takes Marcel and ultimately gives him up for adoption. Yet, throughout, Joe is the one castigated and at rock bottom while Jerome flits in and out of the picture – full of his own transgressions and just as poor a parent.
Volume 2’s exploration is also relevant to the etymology of its title. Historically, a nymphomaniac is a women with a heightened desire for sex. While Joe’s escapades might exemplify the extreme – literally a different man for each night of the week – her categorization as a nymphomaniac is manifested as a linguistic signifier than neglects to offer a similarly common signifier for men. What’s also intriguing is the contradiction within the term “nymphomaniac.” Linguistically, a nymphet is a young woman, and its combination with nymphomaniac would suggest an overt attraction to the young woman. In other words, the nymphomaniac would, most likely be a man infatuated with the young woman a la Lolita’s Humbert Humbert. Perhaps he suffers from satyriasis, but he is more accurately a nymphomaniac, or one infatuated with the nymphet. However, with “nymphomaniac,” the desire is shifted from the subject – one who watches the nymphet – to the object – the nymphet, thus turning ones attraction to the object into an affliction for the object.
If both installments were as relevant as the explorations done within Volume 2, Nymphomaniac could become a von Triar opus. Instead, Volume 2 will be the two hours you choose to watch after reading the IMDB synopsis of Volume 1.
