"Haven't seen this film yet, but I'm certainly intrigued now."

The story is told as Joe's tale with constant interruptions on intellectual tangents by Seligman ( which usually have some oddball graphic [ such as charts and graphs. ] ) Its structured as a series of chapters. In von Trier's treatment each chapter has a moral to summarize the lesson learned ( ie: "love is nothing but lust + jealousy" or "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs." )

The digressions include treatises on fly-fishing, the Fibonacci sequence, parallel parking, the Catholic and Orthodox church &tc.

This is only part of what makes a film with hardcore sex scenes so un-pronzy.

( In a great essay written about Oshima's film In the Realm of the Senses critic Donald Ritchie writes about how its not the content per se that makes pronz pronz. Its a specific aesthetic.

Pronz is there to facilitate masturbation. Identifying with the activity is paramount. Anything that serves to turn the audience into an observer rather than a participant contradicts this purpose. So too much story or character, and feelings such as pity break the "wanking" mood. )

The early girlhood of Joe is shown briefly. And we see a little bit of clothed sexplay with a little GF at age 7. And more significantly Ananya Berg plays her at age 10 where you see the formative aspects of both her spirituality and sexuality. ( And both, as she has her own transfiguration on the mount; paralleling Christ's. )

"I wonder if her real life feelings crept into the screenplay or if the role was written for her or what..."

Definitely written for her.

Von Trier has been paradoxically called a misogynistic feminist. But that's only because he's more of a depressed misanthrope who identifies with women. And Charlotte has been the one constant piece of casting in the previous two films of his "depression triligy;" Antichrist and Melancholia.

But I doubt that her feelings crept in, so much as his feelings.

And he isn't the only Danish director to think that the Pedophile narrative is so very wrong. His fellow Dogma '95 movement comrade Thomas Vinterberg's film The Hunt should have won at the Oscars. It doesn't exactly cast us as heroes. But it shows that the Antis don't care how many innocent lives are destroyed or how many children are harmed when they get rabid. And it forces its Non protagonist to identify with us.

Dante