One story, apparently divided into 2 as the whole thing is just shy of 4 hours long. Seligman, played by Stellan Skarsgard, finds a badly beaten woman - Joe, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, and takes her home where she recounts in 8 segments across the 2 parts how sex has completely taken over upon every aspect of her life.
Whilst there is a lot of explicit sex / images covering different aspects of sex and how they have have featured in and shaped Joe's life, this is not remotely an art house porn movie. Instead it is never less than engrossing, beautifully filmed and a generally quite sad insight into an addiction. Certainly there are some quite shocking scenes, some of which are perhaps rather hard to fully understand, but the controversial, often brilliant and sometimes crass Von Trier does a great job here and the drama and the set pieces are all convincingly played out - the scene where the young boy leaves his cot is terrific. My only minor concern is with the characters generally - the actors, especially Gainsbough give their all here to be sure, but they're all the same and frankly all seem stoned.
An extended edition featuring even more explicit material running at 5 and a half hours exists - not sure I could take that. I was impressed by the film(s) but it's not a lot of laughs.
Whilst there is a lot of explicit sex / images covering different aspects of sex and how they have have featured in and shaped Joe's life, this is not remotely an art house porn movie. Instead it is never less than engrossing, beautifully filmed and a generally quite sad insight into an addiction. Certainly there are some quite shocking scenes, some of which are perhaps rather hard to fully understand, but the controversial, often brilliant and sometimes crass Von Trier does a great job here and the drama and the set pieces are all convincingly played out - the scene where the young boy leaves his cot is terrific. My only minor concern is with the characters generally - the actors, especially Gainsbough give their all here to be sure, but they're all the same and frankly all seem stoned.
An extended edition featuring even more explicit material running at 5 and a half hours exists - not sure I could take that. I was impressed by the film(s) but it's not a lot of laughs.