Very interesting, better than the first one. Doubts are answered.
*
Because of biological structure and history, women are often portrayed as passive (heterosexually speaking) in their pursuit of sexual pleasure. When Joe says "we're all sexual outcasts," that layer of grief is very rich, not only in terms of gender, but also of sexual minorities. Joe's life is bound to be bumpy, because of her specialness and because of her honesty. Speaking of the pan-sm theme, the male protagonist in "Tie Me, Tie Me" is also such an honest person. He is not a good person and can lie very much, but he is a good person, just like a Joe whose IQ is divided by two.
The film does not adopt the "trapped-redemption" model. The all black at the beginning of the first part echoes the complete black at the end of the second part, dragging the eye toward nothingness. Joe shot the old man - the story starts in the dirty alley, where Joe ends up running away, like Loop. I don't think it's a tragedy, because the special people have never had a model reference to resolve certain predicaments.
*
The mutual aid club is an ingenious setting. The distinction between sex addiction and nymphomaniac includes the naming of biological gender, social gender, etc. (the old man who makes milk tea for Joe is the virgin and desireless behind this knowledge), the comfort of the mentor , "patient" confessions are all based on prejudice. Jo struggled because she had fought against these prejudices throughout, and at one point she wanted to be healed by mutual aid. Images of mutual aid associations appear frequently, from basic deductive methods to video artist Wang Tuo's work Poisoning.
Joe tore up his manuscript at the meeting. She sees her past self in the mirror that arouses her sexuality (which is a part of herself). Thinking of the story of "A Beautiful Mind", the mathematician Nash saw the little boy with schizophrenia symptoms, and finally he learned to get along with the boy, but in this film the mirror is a Mobius ring, not a dream. window. Joe is not splitting, she is coupling with her past self. At first I thought that the little girl in the mirror was trying to put pressure on her and judge her, but after the camera moved a second time, I didn't think so. Little girl just sitting there quietly, paddling in the bathroom, weird orgasm on the lawn all around her age?
Joe is really charming. The source of her sexiness is those moments when she recognizes, praises her body, her desires and her words, and when she sinks into the heart like an ultra-small molecule. Mutual Aid is such a twisted moment, when she turns her head away from the poor people, and the current of the narrative picks up: fishing for men on the train is not a game of slutty women, Joe and some eccentric men and bathroom , it will only make people think that these sperm-headed men are very ridiculous. But the sensitive mind must have noticed Jo's perseverance when she fucked first-class men. The man didn't imagine keeping secrets, he didn't have bad intentions, and at least he didn't think about cheating at that moment, but he said all about his wife's calculation of ovulation and the two of them having sex at the specified time and place. What did Joe have then? Poor and not beautiful. Those faux-leather ripped trousers with a provocative zipper in the middle, everything looks under 5 euros. The makeup was so sloppy that it was difficult for the attention-seekers to be interested in her. But she just has the ability to open a man's heart, and this time she started with the gift he bought in a hurry. At that time, Joe was probably the most morbid and cult healer in the world. Her empathy must be black, but pure black.
*
She is a sex outcast, but also a sex connoisseur. She seems to know all the passwords at certain levels of sex, and even debt collection can start with desire. Who can be her opponent? The old man's omniscience and omnipotence are not as good as hers, and she knows the source of man's desire.
Joe was so lonely that she had never had a company. The point is not whether to understand her in terms of pathology, but to understand how it should happen, or can it happen? It's a pity, not the men, not the best friend, not the woman in the mutual aid society, and not the girl she wanted to abet the crime later.
The name "successor" means a lot, Joe's boss should think only about the debt collection itself, but Joe obviously thinks more. She was already a mother at that time and had complex projections for this girl, but it was important that she was still looking for someone who was similar to her, perhaps with a little educational ideals, whether she was a lover, a mentor. Still a daughter. So when she finds out that this girl went to collect her ex-husband's debts and only used sex with him, the blow was double. On the one hand, what Joe can't figure out the most is the relationship between her sex addiction and love. Sex addiction is a huge stone between her and the world. Seeing the girl and her former love (she hurt) so Intimacy, she can easily fall into a loss, so she has to run away and kill. On the other hand, she failed again. The film got here and the old man who read a lot of books couldn't understand her.
There is an almost exceptional person, the sm man. Thinking of the previous movie viewing experience, I feel that Joe is still at Sony Ericsson, and the sm man is the one who will touch this core (of course he didn't). She breaks the rules, her pleas to SM men are actually very proactive, and Jo reverses the power relationship between men and women in a "torture room" made like an operating room. The wonderful thing is that she didn't turn the sm man to the ground and turned herself into a queen, she achieved this in the role of the abused. This is not new in the concept of sm, but the key is how should the film express this initiative? The red and clack of the Christmas gift (a whip) wrapping paper, the sm man is willing to let another client wait for her. Von Trier was very good at using colors, sounds, and sets. You hear the sound of the SM man closing the door, his desk, and the look on his face, and you know this place has nothing to do with love. And Joe gave up her lover and child because of the venue. This is just one of many sad moments in the film.
*
The film is surprisingly structured, with a prose-movie-like arrangement, with the metaphors of ready-made videos in between, mostly about fishing, plants, and animals, with Joe lying in the old man's guest room, naming each chapter of the story after the objects in the room.
Sex has always been associated with fetishes, and psychoanalysis gives us a guide in that regard. As Joe's eyes roam the room and make connections, the space becomes her archive. The energy of things is very special here. Looking back on a long film, the lens often has a scribble on the object, and touches it with a very thin focal plane, allowing the audience to figure out the texture of the object. What does this have to do with desire?
Sometimes I think these things are the embodiment of Joe's desire. I'm thinking of McLuhan's classic line when she wraps up any horns in her room, and I'll tweak it here. The world is an extension of Joe's desires.
She may be a sociological loser, but at the end of the story she escapes as a queen.
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