Kindly and almost unbearably intellectual and autodidactic, Seligman listens as Joe
lays out the narrative of her
sexual awakening, budding promiscuity, and compulsion, the two often digressing into literary, musical, and fly - fishing
references that provides Joe's story a contour, unfolding (as in much von Trier's recent work) in discrete chapters marked by their own title cards and sets of aesthetic choices.
The title, Dark Continent, is a
reference to Sigmund Freud, in The Question of
Lay Analysis writes: «The
sexual life of adult women is a dark continent for psychology.»