I was watching Nicholas Vending Refn's"The Neon Demon" a month ago. I really liked it, but I didn't want to write any text about it, not because the film was difficult to understand, but because it relied heavily on the personal experience. To recreate the feeling of it is like telling a dream - always with compromises and reservations. I believe the more people touch the Neon Demon's drug temptation, the sooner the future will come, so here's what the Danish hipster's last night's nightmare is.
Jesse (El Fanning) was recently in Los Angeles. Her dream is to be a professional model, but the business is cruel and without the help of Ruby (Jenna Malone) the girl had no chance to enter the "big game". Ruby introduces her to her girlfriends Sarah (Abi Lee) and Gigi (Bella Heathcook) who look in a special way on the unspoiled beauty of the virgin girl. After a diabolical performance in one of the clubs, Jesse starts climbing the ladder of success, which will lead to irreparably bloody events. Still from the first frame, Refn asks a question with enough thematic potential. Is this a crime scene or a shooting site? Interestingly, but if the film was just a critique of the harsh fashion business, where every inch and kilogram counts, it would be boring. We have long known that the people behind the glittering ghouls and the girls walking down the podium do not play at retail. If you want to tempt the world, you have to sell your soul (and body). We've seen it a dozen times in cinema. However, "The Neon Demon" covers this paragraph from the very beginning, and then goes on. The innocent Jesse, who goes under the predator's eyes of the photographers, turns out to be not that innocent. The ambitious girl, who knows her real price, needs no temptation because she has been tempted from the very beginning. It is the absolute temptation. "The Neon Demon" , which irrevocably corrupts. This somewhat leaves the movie without a protagonist, which will repel some, but is no doubt more interesting than a simple conflict between innocence and vice. According to Refn, we live in the most narcissistic era. Ballard spoke of this in the 1970s. What will happen when mankind begins to self-register when the enchanted circle of narcissism begins. Refn believes that this time has already come that beauty is slowly turning into the new currency and the true division of class will be based on this basis. Much more brutal discrimination than economic. What are you doing if you are not born beautiful? The ultimate horror.
"The Neon Demon" is the first "female" film by Refn , who with "Only God forgives" ended a sort of trilogy about the silent warrior who studied the male principle and its relationship to violence. In a film focused only on female images, Refn sees the nightmare of being born beautiful and the price you have to pay to exist in an imperfect world. The "Demon" can even be considered as a spiritual extension of "Only God forgives" in which Gosling's character returned to his mother's womb to be reborn now in a 16-year-old girl. Even people who do not understand and dislike Refn's films usually agree that visually the Dane is unattainable in what he does. Neon lights, colorful games and impeccably effective music create an unforgettable atmosphere. What's happening in the movie evolves, like Drive in Los Angeles, but the world is not ours. It looks like a different dimension in which the familiar logic gives red. Characters also do not exist - only projections and symbols. Is "The Neon Demon" pretentious? I can not find any scene that is self-centered or not serving the common whole. Like good poetry, every following verse is a natural extension of the previous one, so when Ruby is involved in a necrophilic scene in the middle of the movie, I say, "Of course, that's good." Our fetish on technology and the excitement we often get from dead beauty in the virtual space are never more accurately represented.
Movies like "The Neon Demon" will leave us out of work. You can not categorize a dream as good or bad. It exists and awakens reactions. You can only judge its emotional honesty. This is the future. Regardless of whether they like it or not, the story is becoming more and more depreciated, and in its place comes the combination of sound and image that creates an emotional response. It does not fit the concepts we have used in the past and requires a new set of receivers The Demon is adopted through an analytical approach, uses archetypes and images and often repels because of the lack of sympathetic characters. It takes time, but the influence of artists like Refn on the industry is already noticeable. The security of the large studios is shaken by the rising ocean of information that provides the opportunity for an instant connection between the creator and the observer. Times are changing, and frankly, I can not wait to see how this will affect the way we look at cinema. "The Neon Demon" is one of the first steps in this new direction. Inspired by the work of great stylists and provocators such as Mario Bava, Dario Argentetto and David Lynch, Refn's film is a diamond in a sea of glass that bears the spirit of the future.