Nymphomaniac * * * *

A looooooong film,  usually shown in two parts or “Volumes”.   After viewing the first Volume I couldn’t wait to start Volume 11.   I was desperate to know how all this is going to end.  As it’s title would suggest there is a lot of sex in this film, but there is a lot of philosophy too, so you feel balanced - like you’ve eaten all that is on your plate for a balanced intake, not just the bits you like.  An older gentleman (he is the philosopher) finds a girl in an alley who has been assaulted.  He takes her back to his apartment so that she might recover.   Jo then narrates her story to him, frequently prompted by items in the room.   She tells him of her nymphomania and the terrible effect it has had on her life - and those that come into her life.  Her story is both shocking and captivating, from seeing how many men she can have sex with on a short train trip when she was sixteen, to how she managed to have sex with several different men a day, every day, when in her twenties, to BDSM later in life.  And all the while it is enhanced by a fascinating philosophical commentary delivered by her good Samaritan host who never judges her.  We learn that despite her irrepressible sex urge there is a man who constantly features in her life. The only man she perhaps truly loved other than her father. (Dah! Dah! a nymphomaniac with Daddy issues, who’d have thunk?  But the telling of the story is so good you forgive it for hinging on that predictable premise.  

One of the most beautiful features of this film is the re-creation of the sixties.  Frequently when film and television recreate the sixties they go over the top.  But this is done in such an effective but understated way with perhaps one or two exteriors, sixties timber veneer panelled hallways and frosted glass in offices, an old Jaguar, clicking typewriters.  I found myself feeling more transported than those films and television series that tend to only focus on the glamour of the era.  I really liked this film.  I felt like I had been on a journey and within days I was wanting to go again.