Random thoughts on Luis Bunuel and Lars von Trier

1/ For some reasons, Belle de Jour made me think about Nymphomaniac, which is probably the most comprehensive and explicit film about sex ever made, covering sex addiction/ nymphomania, homosexuality, bisexuality, BDSM, paedophilia, threesome, etc. and having unsimulated sex. 
And then I realised, I have never seen a sexy scene from Lars von Trier. It’s hard to explain—there’s only a thin line between sexy and crude/vulgar, and who determines where the line is? To me, Belle de Jour is a sexy film. The orgy monologue in Persona is also very erotic, even though nothing is depicted. 
Lars von Trier’s sex scenes are often crude, explicit, sometimes awkward, sometimes mechanical, sometimes physical and animalistic, sometimes violent, humiliating, or even unbearable to watch. Once in a while, his films depict rape and sexual humiliation. There is nothing joyous in his work that I can think of. Lars von Trier is misanthropic and depressing, without providing the audience with catharsis. 
I’ve seen Nymphomaniac, Melancholia, Dogville, and Dancer in the Dark, with bits of Antichrist, bits of Breaking the Waves, and bits of The Idiots. I can’t remember ever seeing a sexy scene from him. 
2/ My 2nd viewing of The Phantom of Liberty somehow also made me think of Lars von Trier. They are similar in that both are irreverent and challenge conventional norms, and both become shocking as a result. However, whilst Luis Bunuel retains his sense of humour and looks at human folly with amusement, whilst mocking and subverting all sorts of mores and social rules, Lars von Trier seems to me to have such a dark, gloomy, and sardonic view of the world, as though he’s filled with incurable bitterness and fear of everything including life. 
He lacks a sense of joy. 
I have always thought that his misanthropy makes his films hollow and, in the long run, irrelevant. 
3/ Or maybe I just detest Lars von Trier. I admire him, and recognise his inventiveness, but dislike him immensely. 
4/ In literature, I love writers like Tolstoy and Nabokov, who celebrate life and the joy of being alive. George Eliot’s rigid moralism bores me; Elfriede Jelinek’s pessimism and obsession with evil disgust me; Flaubert’s misanthropy and view of everything except literature as pointless make it hard for me to embrace him fully. 
My preferences in film and literature, as it appears, are not different.