Nymphomaniac: Vol. II

Nymphomaniac: Vol. II is the second instalment of Lars von Trier's 2013 work, released theatrically a few weeks after Volume I and conceived from the outset as the second half of a single long film. A subsequent five-and-a-half-hour director's cut restored material removed for the theatrical release, primarily to Volume II, which was the more heavily trimmed of the two. The completed work closes the Depression Trilogy von Trier began with Antichrist (2009) and continued with Melancholia (2011).

Volume II resumes Joe's confessional account to Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård), now moving into the adult chapters of her life. Charlotte Gainsbourg takes over from Stacy Martin for the later years of the role. Shia LaBeouf returns as Jerôme, and the cast expands with Jamie Bell in a key extended chapter, Willem Dafoe, and an early appearance from Mia Goth in one of her first feature roles. The conversational frame between Joe and Seligman, with its scholarly digressions and counter-arguments, continues throughout.

Critically, Volume II was the more divisive of the two parts. Reviewers responded to von Trier's willingness to push the work's transgressive register substantially harder than the first half, and to the formal coldness of the photography of Manuel Alberto Claro across the later chapters. Together, the two volumes amount to one of the most ambitious works of late-career von Trier and one of the most thoroughly debated European films of the 2010s.