Nymphomaniac: Volume II Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Nymphomaniac: Volume II Blu-ray Movie Review

Von Drearier

Reviewed by Michael Reuben July 7, 2014

The second half of Lars von Trier's mega-film, Nymphomaniac, is being released both separately and as part of a two-disc set. This follows the theatrical release pattern, where, in the U.S., for example, Volume I was issued on March 21, 2014, and Volume II on April 6. A similar split release is being pursued with von Trier's five-and-a-half hour director's cut; Volume I premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 16, 2014, and Volume II is set to appear this fall at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The following discussion assumes that the reader is familiar with the Blu-ray review of Volume I.

Reality bites back in the second volume of Nymphomaniac. Or perhaps it isn't reality so much as karma or some other concept of natural balance attempting to compensate for an anomaly such as Joe (primarily played here by Charlotte Gainsbourg, but sometimes still by Stacy Martin). Joe may simply have reached the limits of what flesh can experience, but of course Joe refuses to accept any such limits. Alternatively, in the religious terms with which von Trier sometimes flirts, Volume II could be viewed as God's retribution. But in von Trier's world, it is often hard to distinguish between the will of God and the machinations of the director as puppetmaster.

Having spontaneously lost the capacity to experience sexual pleasure, Joe sinks into a routine and frustrating relationship with Jerôme (Shia LaBeouf) in which she rapidly ages, as if all the indulgence of her youth were catching up with her body. In the process, she acquires a child, Marcel, whom she does not love, and she is encouraged by Jerôme to see other men, an effort she pursues with the same inventiveness as before but without satisfaction. Joe's quest for sensual reawakening ultimately leads her to sadomasochistic abuse at the hands of a professional master, K (Jamie Bell), to whom she becomes such a devoted slave that she loses everything else in her life. But she recovers her capacity to feel.

In later scenes, Joe is required by her employer to enroll in sex addiction therapy, against which she rebels, and as a result enters the illegal profession of debt collection, where her sponsor is the avuncular L (Willem Dafoe). It turns out that the same talent for psychological manipulation that made Joe a skilled seducer can be adapted to separating men from their money, especially when Joe is accompanied by two vicious goons. Eventually, at L's urging, Joe adopts a protégé named P (Mia Goth). It is this latest chapter of Joe's life that leads to her being beaten in the street, where Seligman found her.

In Breaking the Waves, von Trier put an innocent through a series of abuses and humiliations, only to arrange a kind of divine "rescue" (if you can call it that) at the last moment. It is not hard to see a similar pattern in Volume II of Nymphomaniac, as Joe's flesh undergoes a ritual mortification and she confesses her sins to Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) in expiation of the offenses of Volume I. Seligman refers to Christ's stations of the cross and even offers a kind of absolution when he notes that Joe's adventures wouldn't raise an eyebrow if a man had pursued something similar. But unlike Breaking the Waves, Nymphomaniac doesn't end with a divine intervention. Here, Von Trier chooses a different outcome, and it's one in which the puppetmaster's hand is especially overt. Fans of The Kingdom may recall the brief comments during each episode's closing credits, presented by von Trier clad in black tie and dinner jacket, his light-hearted delivery frequently at odds with the ominous events of the preceding hour. The conclusion of Nymphomaniac feels like it would benefit from a similar personal appearance by the director, but I doubt von Trier could muster the same cheerful demeanor when he's just given the audience the equivalent of a slap in the face.

Nymphomaniac: Volume II Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Chilean cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro, who shot Melancholia for von Trier, returned for Nymphomaniac, which was photographed digitally, primarily on the Arri Alexa Plus, with some inserts shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Post-production was completed on a digital intermediate, and the color grading is precisely detailed to establish a particular style for different portions of Joe's life. The examples can be obvious, such as the black-and-white Chapter 4 in Volume I, or much subtler, as in the changes in texture in Volume II between Joe's conversations with Seligman in the "present" and her account of her work with Willem Dafoe's L, where the latter has been given a slightly grainy texture almost like 16mm film.

Magnolia Home Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray delivers a fine rendition of Nymphomaniac, which is only to be expected in a project that has been digitally acquired and processed at every stage, with no analog conversion. The image is sharp, detailed and, except for deliberate texturing, free of noise or interference. The blacks are solid, and the colors range from the drab interiors of Seligman's abode to the clear but sterile blues and whites of the home that Joe shares with Jerôme to the occasional eruptions of bright red, often associated with pain or pleasure (or both). Magnolia has followed its usual practice of delivering a high average bitrate at 34.98 Mbps for Volume II, ensuring a superior image without artifacts.

Nymphomaniac: Volume II Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The sound design of Nymphomaniac: Volume II is similar to that of Volume I and is also presented on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1. Joe's narration in the present, sometimes interrupted by one of Seligman's questions, comments or, as Joe calls them, digressions, weaves in and around the dialogue and basic sounds of the scenes she is describing. Dialogue sometimes abruptly contrasts with other sounds; the most notable in Volume II are the lashings administered by Jamie Bell's K. Volume II also has no original score, but von Trier continues to prefer a mix of portentous classical music (e.g., Mozart's "Requiem") and portentous contemporary rock (e.g., an arrangement of "Hey Joe" sung by Charlotte Gainsbourg over the closing titles). Even that standard played by every piano student, Beethoven's "Für Elise", is given a sinister arrangement and context.

Nymphomaniac: Volume II Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As with Volume I, prospective purchasers with region-free players will want to compare the extras on Magnolia's disc with those offered on the Region B- locked edition of Nymphomaniac: Volume II released earlier this year by Artificial Eye.

• The Director (1080p; 1.78:1; 8:50): Gainsbourg, Martin, Skarsgård and LaBeouf discuss working with von Trier.



• The Sex (1080p; 1.78:1; 7:13): The same four interviewees comment on the film's sex scenes. Martin notes how technical and unerotic they were to film.



• Nymphomaniac Volume II Trailer (1080p; 2.35:1; 1:45).



• Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment: The disc includes trailers for Filth, Grand Piano, The Double and The Sacrament, as well as promos for AXS TV. These also play at startup, where they can be skipped with the chapter forward button.



• BD-Live: As of this writing, attempting to access BD-Live gave the message "Check back later for updates".

Nymphomaniac: Volume II Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In one of the interviews included in the extras, Stellan Skarsgård recalls seeing von Trier's film, The Element of Crime, and thinking, "I'd like to work with this director when he gets interested in people." Both as a subject of cinema and as aesthetic objects, people often seem both to fascinate and repel von Trier, himself included. One often gets the sense that, if he had the choice, he would exist as pure spirit, as impervious to physical sensation as the frozen trunks of dead trees that Joe's father finds so compelling. Unfortunately for this fastidious depressive, humans exist as flesh, subject to needs, desires and the "thousands natural shocks" of which Hamlet complained. Nymphomaniac is about many things, but one of them is the curse of living a fleshly existence. Von Trier grudgingly accepts being a spirit encased in flesh, but that doesn't stop him from kicking up a fuss about it—and misery loves company. As with Volume I, judge for yourself.