Raccoon-loving literary titan Edgar Allan Poe is having a bit of a moment on big and small screens. He's been the star of his own thriller, The Raven, alongside that raccoon, and he's the inspiration for James Purefoy's serial killer in Fox TV show The Following. Here he is again, lending his gloriously macabre prose to Lars von Trier's new **Nymphomaniac **teaser / clip / appetiser / whatnot.
This is the fourth chapter in a wildly cryptic and increasingly teassing campaign, although if you haven't seen chapters one through three, don't panic! They don't help. Neither, we guess, will the film's new website, NymphomaniacTheMovie.com, when it launches in earnest, although it may have more doodles of people's sexy bits for those who are interested. And, yes, that's you. Don't deny it.
So what can be divined from von Trier's use of The Fall Of The House Of Usher's famous opening in the voiceover? Hard to say. All the doomy portent seems a little at odds with the consensus that von Triers has crafted a black comedy akin to The Idiots, but it's nice to see a director keeping his cards close to his chest. If there are any car chases in this film, he's doing a good job of hiding them.
**Nymphomaniac **chronicles the erotic journey of self-diagnosed sex addict Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) from birth until the age of 50. The movie will jump around in time and cover a large number of characters. Appearing alongside Gainsbourg are Shia LaBeouf, Jamie Bell, Uma Thurman, Udo Kier, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Willem Dafoe, Stellan Skarsgard, Mia Goth, Christian Slater, Nicolas Bros and Connie Nielsen. There are no raccoons, that we know of.
It's out in Denmark on Christmas Day, just in time to add some bonking to the festive period, and should follow in these parts and the US soon after.