Carl Abrahamsson: Nymphomaniac & Shame: A good feel-bad double bill

What happens when the sex drive goes into compensatory overdrive? Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac (2013) and Steve McQueen's Shame (2011) show us just what, and therefore deserve to be compared. Great and at times (literally) penetrating filmmaking or merely exploitation of human weaknesses? That I leave for you to decide, but I do strongly recommend both films. If you have the time, preferably as a wonderful feel-bad double bill.

A four hour Lars von Trier display of a nymphomaniac's exploits and adventures, from childhood to womanhood. Enticing concept, eh? After Antichrist's (2009) darkly humorous exposure of the inherent risks of non-resonant relationships, and Melancholia's (2011) purely emotional angst romanticism, this new offering is pure flesh and then some. The catch phrase of the film's marketing campaign is "Forget about love" and that is certainly true to the (hard) core.

Protagonist Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is a slave of her own libido and her entire life is based on navigating through brief encounters during which she can temporarily (very temporarily) be free of the compulsive addiction that confuses her as much as it satisfies.

When she eventually falls in love with the man (Shia LaBeouf) who, when they were young, brutally freed her of her virginity, all lust suddenly disappears and she becomes even more frustrated. Forget about love, indeed. Like most people, she would rather not leave her comfort zone of compulsive indulgence, and hence destroys the bourgeois pseudo-safety in order to experience more of everything. Very much more.

The overall story is told by Joe to her new friend Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) – he finds her beaten up in an alley and takes her home to his spartan, almost monastic apartment – through explicit yet often poetic tableaux. This is interwoven with Seligman's intellectual responses, reasonings and attempts at explaining to Joe what she already knows in the non-intellectual flesh. It is in a way a brilliant mockery of psychoanalysis, in which two psychos end up analyzing each other. I'm not a fan of spoilers, but let me just say that the end is worth waiting for, in its violent annihilation of all hope of redemption (or whatever they're looking for). Bleak, stark and dark? You bet.

I can almost see how von Trier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen went through Krafft-Ebing's classic manual of kink, Psychopathia Sexualis, in order to find explicit fodder for Joe's adventures. Critics went into a frenzy even before the film had been shown and talked about sexual exploitation and debasement. True in a sense, but let's not forget that the victims in Nymphomaniac are all male. Well, some families get their fair share of Joe's exploits too. Uma Thurman's performance as a humiliated wife deserves a lubricated Oscar, at least.

A new form of psycho-analysis for protagonist Joe.

Nymphomaniac is a highly relevant and well-needed film because the usual contemporary feministic discourse about female victimisation here gets a thorough kick in the balls. The scene where Joe sincerely takes on her suffering sisters in an AA-like meeting of intimate confessions, all programmed to lead up to the great nivellation katharsis, becomes a crucial turning point for her, on par with her total submission to the film's suave young sadist. Beautiful political incorrectness!

von Trier continues successfully onwards on his trail of exploration, predominantly of the female psyche, and the specific themes are not new at all. Even as far back as in Menthe (1979), we can find elements of female sexuality striving for sadomasochistic release. But I would say that his three latest films constitute one distinct thematic totality. And the expressions are also so brilliantly tied together. What makes Antichrist, Melancholia and Nymphomaniac different from his other films is that they're all more or less perfect (let's not forget he's made some really poor films too). The relationship between Antichrist and Nymphomaniac is obvious when you've seen them, and Melancholia becomes like an intermediary, a stepping stone, an orchestrated opera of heavy depression in between Thanatos and Eros.

I've heard from different women that von Trier is particularly good at analyzing the female psyche. If that's the case, what we're experiencing in Nymphomaniac and his other recent films is a perfect vindication of Otto Weininger and his theories.

A brilliant script and brilliant performances by all: Gainsbourg, Skarsgård, Uma Thurman, as mentioned, Willem Defoe, Christian Slater, Shia LaBeouf, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier... All the usual von Trier suspects... And Stacy Martin as the younger Joe is beyond brilliant. I don't buy von Trier's disclaimer in the beginning of the film about him not being satisfied with the version currently shown in theaters. There is apparently a five and a half hour version coming up and perhaps that will be more to his own liking. But still, it is a magnificent film just the way it is. The only single flaw I could experience is the horrible music, made by some kind of heavy metal band that unsuccessfully tries to imitate Laibach. Absolutely awful.

Michael Fassbender ponders his next compulsive conquest in Shame...

What about Shame then? Well, the story is basically the same. Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a robotic Manhattan yuppie type who can't commit to relationships or, actually, to other people in general. He copes by masturbating, consuming porn, humping whores, one night stands (more like ten minute stands) and generally acts like an "emotionally challenged" person.

The only one who can rock the boat is his depressed and self-destructive sister, aptly called Sissy (Carey Mulligan). When she has sex with his sociopathic boss in his own bed, that does it. And when Brandon actually does become emotionally attached to a woman at work and is about to have sex with her, he fails. "Forget about love", all over again. Not a good aphrodisiac, apparently. In order not to flip his masculine wig completely, he immediately tries a whore instead. Et voilà... Mission accomplished successfully!

Shame is a very simple/simplistic story, which is, despite its apparent distance, highly moral(istic). The sister leaves a message on Brandon's answering machine just before she tries to commit suicide: "We're not bad people. We just come from a bad place". Well, what was that place, I wonder? What is the background to the story of the protagonist's excessive compulsion? We are only left with Brandon's emotional struggles back and forth, indicating that something is indeed wrong with his behavior – to him, anyway. Strange that so many people all over the world manage to be promiscuous and multisexual without succumbing to the very key concept here: Shame.

In this respect, McQueen's film differs enormously from von Trier's. It's imbued with a Mosaic morality that in itself fucks people up, and has done so for thousands of years. Shame plus the inability or unwillingness to commit to morally sanctioned heterosexual relationships (long term, preferably) of course equal disaster in this mindframe. It's therefore a healthy shift of perspectives and paradigms we're seeing in von Trier's film. Joe in Nymphomaniac is a woman who eventually copes with her affliction by being honest and willing to take the consequences of her actions, regardless of the sacrifices it requires. That's tough and that's honest. Brandon in Shame is a man who is existentially impotent, who compensates by erectile work-outs and disregards the consequences entirely. As he himself eventually realizes, that's neither tough nor honest.

What these oversexed individuals do share however, is the apparent inability to combine sex and the emotional cluster generally called love. von Trier and McQueen thereby address an issue which is deeply ingrained in the Judeo-Christian psyche. And they do it well, albeit very differently. von Trier is a bona fide Fingerspitzgefühl Wagnerian and wants everything to end in total Ragnarök. McQueen is a Mosaic morality messenger who keeps his distance. Need I say which film is the most entertaining?

Let's hear it for the best feel-bad double bill of recent times!