Aleks Wansbrough does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
While Labeouf supposedly leapt at the opportunity to bare all, one can imagine feeling uncomfortable at such a request. The reality of sex on screen makes many people feel awkward and uncomfortable, and not merely the actors. But what is it about sex — real sex — that so unsettles in film? And — if we can accept real sex is a cinematic turn-off — why is it used at all?
Nymphomaniac is the third film by von Trier to include real sex. Von Trier, unlike some directors, does not have his principle actors have sex. Instead, he uses porn doubles. Indeed, at the end of the film, they challenge themselves to destroy their normal lives and fully commit to being idiots.
The film is part of the Dogme 95 movement , which demands a vow of chastity to prohibit any Hollywood artifice — such as fake action, lighting, staging, even a tripod. This complication is quite fitting, given that The Idiots questions how far simulation can go before it either falls back from reality or becomes a reality. As with The Idiots, real sex in films often serves an anti-aesthetic purpose, where the illusion of cinema is broken — we see all the floppy and pink bits.
In short, the physicality of sex can be ugly. However, real sex on screen can be a transcendent experience, all the more beautiful for being real. The film begins with a prison guard watching two male prisoners as they exchange flowers through the windows of their respective cells. This beginning could seem platonic enough, but soon we see the male prisoners masturbating. The real masturbation creates both a sense of reality and even humour as we become estranged from our bodies by the sight of other bodies.
