Nymphomaniac Volumes I and II (R). Director: Lars Von Trier. Starring: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater. 231 minutes
In a World (MA). Director: Lake Bell. Starring: Lake Bell, Rob Corddry, Fred Melamed, Michaela Watkins, Demetri Martin, Ken Marino, Alexandra Holden. 93 minutes
If you don't feel ill by the end of provocateur Lars Von Trier's four-hour exercise in cinematic cruelty Nymphomaniac, there's something wrong with you. Conversely, if Lake Bell's charming and witty comedy In a World ... leaves you with a warm fuzzy feeling that you just can't shake, well, hey, you're only human. Both feature strong female characters, whose femaleness puts them at odds with a male-dominated world. Nymphomaniac is a nightmare; In a World ... an inspirational daydream.
Nymphomaniac [review contains spoilers] begins in darkness; after long moments the camera opens its eye on a decrepit alleyway, and locates a woman (Gainsbourg) lying battered and unconscious on its damp floor. She is discovered there by a world-weary man (Skarsgård), who rouses her and guides her to his apartment and revives her with tea and a warm bed. As they begin to converse, the woman, Joe, identifies herself as a 'bad' person, and to convince the man, Seligman, of this fact, proceeds to share with him her story.
As the title suggests, it is a story marked by innumerable sexual encounters with random men. Often it is explicit, and thoroughly unpleasant. But Volume I is also decidedly humane. It dedicates much screen time to the relationship between young Joe (Martin) and her father (Slater), a doctor and dilettante-mystic who is one of two men whom Joe has loved in her life. The other is Jerôme (LaBeouf), an on-again, off-again partner, her love for whom perplexes and almost subdues the promiscuous Joe.
Things become much uglier in Volume II. Joe has grown depressed after losing sensation in her genitals, and her addiction to sex takes a masochistic turn. It is difficult to justify all of the silly atrocities Von Trier serves up here. But the film is nothing if not thoughtful. It frequently cuts back to Joe and Seligman in the present day, as they digress on topics as diverse as fishing, art and literature, love, death and religion. Joe's incontinent sexuality becomes a mirror for all of Western culture and the human condition. And vice versa.
All of this culminates in a pointed statement about societal double standards regarding gender and sex. It is expressed first verbally by Seligman, who has