NYMPHOMANIAC at the 42th FEST!

Lars von Trier  is one of the few directors that never stop surprising his audience. With each new film, he further pushes even further the very limits he set in his previous works. His latest film is an epic 4-hour endeavor, starring names such as Stacy Martin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Willem Dafoe, Connie Nielsen, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Mia Goth and Uma Thurman and many others. There are several versions of the film, but the director approved them all, noting the only difference is in the length and the intensity of the scenes that were removed in order for the film to be approved for movie theaters. The Berlinale saw only the first part of the two von Trier plans on screening in cinemas. The visitors of FEST will have the unique opportunity to watch, the same day, the integral 240-minute version.

Von Trier has until now grouped his films as trilogies connected into a style or thematic whole; Nymphomaniac is the final film of the trilogy Depression. CharlotteGainsbourg stars in all of the three films Antichrist, Melancholia and  Nymphomaniac, which all deal with characters struggling with depression and sadness in different ways. With this trilogy, von Trier is said to be trying to depict his own depression, which, in his own admission, has been haunting him his whole life.

Nymphomaniac is the story about the life of a woman, self-proclaimed nymphomaniac and a retrospection of her erotic experiences, from her early youth to a mature age. Although it has been vilified from the start for its explicit scenes, the actors, but also the critics, defended the film explaining that these scenes were instrumental in depicting what von Trier wanted to say.Stellan Skarsgård said it was stupid to call the film pornographic; it was maybe more appropriate to call it very bad porn. "After a while, you realize you don't even react to the graphic scenes. They become natural, as if you were watching someone having breakfast."

The idea for making the film was born during the shoot of Melancholia, when the director of photography shared his concern with von Trier, begging him not to fall in the same trap as many other of his colleagues, whose female characters in the films become increasingly younger and nude. "That's all I wanted to hear," von Trier said. "I definitely want the women in my films to become younger and nuder".

Lars von Trier if famous for being equally scandalous as his films. Two years ago, he managed to make an historical precedent and become the first to be declared persona non grata at the film festival in Cannes. Although he has been nominated for the Golden Palm eight times (won it once), his politically incorrect jokes earned him the pariah status on the Festival. Subsequently, von Trier decided not to give statements and interviews anymore and at the press conference of the Berlinale, where Nymphomaniac was premiered, he appeared with a T-shirt with the Cannes Festival golden logo and the inscription "Persona non grata".