The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016)

[domino harvey]

Yes but you're also ignoring that the the choices made on MAPS TO THE STARS are a direct counter response by Cronenberg to his previous movie COSMOPOLIS which indulged in all the choices you're criticising Refn for.

Cosmopolis has its own set of problems, but even assuming the above to be so, it doesn't change my argument in the slightest

[R0lf]

Yes but you're also ignoring that the the choices made on MAPS TO THE STARS are a direct counter response by Cronenberg to his previous movie COSMOPOLIS which indulged in all the choices you're criticising Refn for.

Cosmopolis has its own set of problems, but even assuming the above to be so, it doesn't change my argument in the slightest

I was reading your comment in the general sense that Cronenberg made MAPS TO THE STARS which avoided the pitfalls of THE NEON DEMON. The implication I read here is that Cronenberg knows better in his direction what not to do. However this isn't accurate when he makes the same directorial decisions in COSMOPOLIS (extravagant visuals, empty symbolism, fancy vapid dialogue, veering dangerously close to making a point but thankfully never making one) and then directs MAPS TO THE STARS in counterpoint.

It changes your argument because Cronenberg's starting point in his dislogue for MAPS TO THE STARS is the same one as Refn's in THE NEON DEMON.

[dda1996a]

I found all three films to be interesting yet extremely disappointing in the end. I didn't care much for Maps but found Neon to be interesting, well until the last third. Sure it's influenced and is similar to Black Swan, Mulholland Dr, All About Eve and every other film about jealousy in a competitive world. It's just Ren knows how create a beautiful world with an off kilter look, like a lesser Lynch. With Fanning it works quite well and the film is both beautiful and somewhat funny. I just don't get why he keeps on taking such pointless routes for his films. It's just the end that fucks everything the film does

[oh yeah]

Per the above discussion, I thought Maps to the Stars was one of the best recent Cronenberg flicks, and some kind of great film -- sickening, yes, but, paradoxically, deeply human. Although it played as almost science fiction in its brutal, queasy Hollywood satire, what the characters were going through felt very real, indeed tragic.

The Neon Demon had a quite promising opening 30-45 minutes or so. The photography was predictably sharp, the mood was foreboding, and Refn's vision of L.A. was as intoxicatingly nightmarish as ever (though I found little in the film to resemble Lynch besides on a very abstract level). It seemed to be headed for a kind of intriguing occult horror -- the giallo of Suspiria presented in the more realistic tones of Eyes Wide Shut or Polanski, say -- but then something happened. I'm not sure what, but I'm having trouble remembering the second half of this picture. All I can think of is how dull, dumb and disgusting it was. Shock value for its own sake. A huge waste of an initially intriguing film, albeit one which is indeed covering very thematically well-tread ground.

I actually liked Only God Forgives, FWIW, and Drive is alright, but for me the woefully underseen Fear X remains Refn's greatest, and sole great, English-language film. (I add that qualifier because I've not yet seen any of the Danish ones!)

[knives]

There's, of course, a lot to say about the visuals, but I get the feeling that people get so lost in the visualization of Chic's Le Freak that some of the more interesting touches like a very specific use of the Ozu full frontal close up adapted rather ingeniously for scope get lost. The film's sense of isolation and observation imposed on Fanning, or possibly assumed by her, is perfectly conveyed with a technique which in academy suggests the casual and conversation. In a film emphasizing flash it suggests a purposefulness and theme that would not be felt otherwise. The theme here is hard to get a sense of. A lot of it feels like Black Swan with a homophobic lead or maybe a variation of Cat People with some of Russell's Whore thrown in which wouldn't be terribly impressive. Certainly compared to his last two features this doesn't immediately suggest much theme, but I think this is more a case where he verbalizes the themes to a lesser degree rather than the surface expressing it in depth.

What does seem to make it interesting, at least for me, is the way all of these voices are filtered through Fanning who gives a typically great performance despite looking nothing like a model. None of the characters, possibly excepting Reeves and one scene for Malone, seem to act in isolation of how Fanning thinks they see her. Even in a deeply personal moment like when Sarah is hurt at the audition it is filtered through Fanning seeing the moment and then forcing it to be all about her, her flaws, her successes, how she induces love and jealousy, her. Occasionally he can overdo this, telling Dean "you want to be me," which also plays poorly with some of the references, redrum, but they tend to be brought up in a blink and you'll miss it fashion which helps prevent the film from coming across as talkative as Drive was. I'm a bit weary that NWR means all this stuff with her egotism like Black Swan just to show the maturing of a child into a woman though like that film there are enough strengths in the characterization for the film to persevere through such simplicity of intent.

Also, as an aside, when did Jenna Malone become Parker Posey?

[domino harvey]

Fanning who gives a typically great performance despite looking nothing like a model.

No one has ever looked more like a model than Elle Fanning. It also helps that she is already literally a model

[knives]

Presumably after she started acting though. To clarify what I mean she looks nothing like the other actresses playing models in the film. Abbey Lee, who is presented by the film as a sort of generic ideal, is a lot closer to what I meant by a model. Though this could have been deliberate on NWR's part as Fanning standing out fits with the natural argument in the film.

[mfunk9786]

I agree that Fanning is lacking a maturity to her appearance that makes her rivalry with Lee and Heathcote a little unusual. They look like runway models through and through (their features skew toward the very angular), and Fanning is too wholesome and young looking to be believable as a threat to their employment. Picturing Fanning in, say, the absurd shoot from the final scene of the film, is tough to do.

[domino harvey]

You guys really shouldn't be doubling down on this considering current and recent fashion trends negate your arguments

[mfunk9786]

It's a good thing that it doesn't make a difference to me one way or another, then. Dodged a bullet there.

[domino harvey]

It doesn't matter to you if you're wrong or not? Great defense!

[mfunk9786]

I stand by what I (and knives) said, I don't think I'm wrong, and I find it a strange thing to try to instigate an argument about beyond stating disagreement. That's why it's not really a concern of mine to drag it out any longer.

[knives]

You guys really shouldn't be doubling down on this considering current and recent fashion trends negate your arguments

I have no clue what the current or future trends and so if Fanning fits with that to a tee, pardon the ignorance. In comparison to the recent past with Lee and Carrie Moss as examples she is definitely different being shorter and less angular than them. Though I suppose arguing the realities of the modeling industry with relation to this film was a dumb thing on my part.

[Mr Sausage]

This argument is pointless, tho', because whatever body-type the modeling industry wants is a matter of fashion and taste, and so arbitrary and mutable. Since this is a fiction film, all you have to be willing to accept is a world in which a beautiful women is ideal for the beauty industry. Whether this beautiful women happens to match current fashions in our own world is beside the point.

[knives]

Well, yes which is why I originally phrased it in terms of the other models in the film. Fanning doesn't look like any of the other actresses in a way that is really pronounced.

[Mr Sausage]

Well, yes which is why I originally phrased it in terms of the other models in the film. Fanning doesn't look like any of the other actresses in a way that is really pronounced.

Considering she is treated as a singular entity, this is appropriate, isn't it?

[mfunk9786]

Sausage, I certainly see what your point is, but it remains a personal issue any time a film centers around someone having created great art, or having written something considered ingenious, and so on - and then the product of that is displayed onscreen and there's even a remote part of you that goes "oh.... I mean, I suppose". In the universe of The Neon Demon, not being entirely sold on the idea that the rest of these models would be so threatened by someone who doesn't seem like they'd be up for the same jobs as them (modeling is something with a good deal of variety, and a good deal of types of women and men that photographers, designers, and so on would be looking for) was a sticking point, and not to speak for him, but it sounds like knives had a similar issue.

We are being shown auditions where there are Tex Avery-level reactions to Fanning's presence in rooms full of beautiful (though perhaps no longer desirable in a meat market sense) models, and I don't think I ever plugged into the idea that it was anywhere close to reality, despite some strong work on the part of Refn to sell it. It's not at all a criticism of Fanning's looks, more an issue of where those looks would be categorized next to the other models (and actresses, in the case of Heathcote) that were cast in the film. In a horizontal sense, not a vertical ranking of some kind.

[knives]

Well, yes which is why I originally phrased it in terms of the other models in the film. Fanning doesn't look like any of the other actresses in a way that is really pronounced.

Considering she is treated as a singular entity, this is appropriate, isn't it?

Yes, which I think the natural scene served to highlight which I think focuses on the criticisms Mfunk just summarized. Though I think, and this was my original point, Fanning has to do a lot of heavy lifting to make sense of that.

[Mr Sausage]

Sausage, I certainly see what your point is, but it remains a personal issue any time a film centers around someone having created great art, or having written something considered ingenious, and so on - and then the product of that is displayed onscreen and there's even a remote part of you that goes "oh.... I mean, I suppose". In the universe of The Neon Demon, not being entirely sold on the idea that the rest of these models would be so threatened by someone who doesn't seem like they'd be up for the same jobs as them (modeling is something with a good deal of variety, and a good deal of types of women and men that photographers, designers, and so on would be looking for) was a sticking point, and not to speak for him, but it sounds like knives had a similar issue.

We are being shown auditions where there are Tex Avery-level reactions to Fanning's presence in rooms full of beautiful (though perhaps no longer desirable in a meat market sense) models, and I don't think I ever plugged into the idea that it was anywhere close to reality, despite some strong work on the part of Refn to sell it. It's not at all a criticism of Fanning's looks, more an issue of where those looks would be categorized next to the other models (and actresses, in the case of Heathcote) that were cast in the film. In a horizontal sense, not a vertical ranking of some kind.

I'm not sure you have got my point if you're just going to restate your original position.

Your argument is: I don't think it would be true for for our universe, therefore I will not believe it is true for any universe. This argument might be worth taking seriously if, say, the movie involved D.J. Qualls being a firefighter. As it stands, what we're being asked to believe is that the beauty industry would consider Elle Fanning beautiful.

Lets look at your evidence:

It's not at all a criticism of Fanning's looks, more an issue of where those looks would be categorized next to the other models (and actresses, in the case of Heathcote) that were cast in the film. In a horizontal sense, not a vertical ranking of some kind.

Categorized by whom? The real individuals here in our world who hold positions in the beauty industry? Why would that have any bearing on fictional individuals holding analogous positions in a fictional world? This amounts to saying that imaginary people can only hold what we suppose to be the precise opinions of real people with analogous jobs. So long as real person A likely wouldn't find someone worthy of being a model, so fictional person B must also not find someone worthy of it, because...I don't know. You'd have to tell me why this would make any sense.

Which brings us to the main problem of your argument: you're not arguing matters of immutable fact; you're arguing matters of taste and fashion, the most mutable of cultural products. There is no fundamental reason why this or that thing is in fashion or to someone's taste, so you cannot argue that any fashion or taste must be so. That's hindsight bias. Fashion and taste are what they are because someone decides it is so. So here we have a movie in which some people decide that Elle Fanning is to their taste and therefore fashionable. The argument that this could not be so and could never be so because it currently isn't so is fallacious. It makes the mistake of assuming how things are now is the only way they could ever be. That is quite literally the definition of taking things for granted. How things are now is not granted; they arrived like this by accident and will leave the same way. Don't get too attached to ephemera.

Your arguments further revolve around the stereotype of the model as a tall, thin, angular beauty. Domino indicates that this doesn't actually hold as much of a stranglehold as you claim (certainly Kate Upton, one of the world's most popular models, breaks it), and he may be right. But it wouldn't matter if he wasn't. Because Fanning has clearly been cast in contradistinction to the other actresses, who were cast and photographed to emphasize that stereotypical tall, angular model look. So we're invited to see Fanning's difference to them as being precisely the thing that commands attention. This makes more sense than hiring another tall, angular woman to play her character, because there would be so little to differentiate her from her rivals that the movie would become absurd in the wrong way (think: the business card scene in American Psycho).

So, again, all you are being asked to believe is that a hypothetical world exists in which the gatekeepers of beauty decide they now like Elle Fanning's looks more than some other look. If you can't do that, I submit the problem is yours and not the film's.

And as an aside, Elle Fanning being a model is quite literally the only believable part of this nutty movie.

[Magic Hate Ball]

She's literally the physical embodiment of youth and beauty, which is why all the other models are made to look like mean horses.

[colinr0380]

"Nothing fake; nothing false. A diamond in a sea of glass"

I'm finally getting to this and inevitably loved it. Its like a fearlessly dangerous and perverse take on well worn showbiz tropes that have underpinned everything from A Star Is Born to Showgirls! In a strange way this feels like it is taking up and elaborating on those singular scenes from Drive and Only God Forgives of those rooms of posed women (the strippers in their backroom in Drive and the women dressed like up like frilly dolls (by the costume designer of Thai film Tears of the Black Tiger) in the club in Only God Forgives) and merging it with those images of grand guignol stagings of death of beautiful women in the club in Ryan Gosling's Lost River film. It feels as if the influence of Gosling's film has sloshed back onto Refn somewhat!

But film wise there seem to be a lot of other wonderful references going on here: the seedy motel room invaded by a big cat feels like an obvious homage to Paul Schrader's Cat People remake (also about the simmering dangers of female sexuality!). The Repulsion hands. And there seems like a homage to the shower sequence of Carrie in a late scene! Plus others, which I'll get to later on!

There is a beautiful use of mirrors throughout, with characters constantly reflected within frames inside the image. In some ways the seedy hotel room with its old fashioned peeling and bubbling wallpaper is the most impressive location here. It makes the beauty of Jesse stand out stronger against its relative 'normality'. Or at least normality compared to the other spaces that are much more 'designed'. The paired scene to the one showing Jesse from the legs down lying on the bed against that wallpaper is probably the first photographer one where she is posed against an entirely white background, which is stunning in the way that it provides such a stark, exposed contrast (it reminded me a bit of Under The Skin), but removes context from the body. Its just a figure at that point. An image of flesh rather than a person. I guess that is another way that Lost River reflects on Neon Demon - those 'normal' spaces against much more abstract ones. But here everyone is a tenant and nobody actually appears to live anywhere. Houses are rented out for photoshoots rather than lived in. Once we get to the claustrophobic final section of the film set in the house that Ruby is housesitting, we have every element composed, every object is placed in just the right angle to be shown off in the best light possible.

I love the abstraction of the film, mostly through the design. I love that it is the 'female corridor film' to match the 'male corridor film' of Only God Forgives. The beautifully lit and composed hallways become like catwalks for the character to move down in various modes of dress and at various speeds (top speed being during the chase sequence of course!). And that allows for the actual catwalk scene to go entirely abstract and almost symbolic dream sequence-like in that central sequence, with the walk that Jesse does towards the almost Masonic triangles (we're going to get more secretive cults at the end!), reaching them and them reflecting her image in triplicate - the three reflections (the trinity that will eventually become embodied by the three women surrounding Jesse) looking back at her and the middle reflection kissing each of those on either side of her. Its a wonderful abstraction of what could be a standard scene of reaching the end of the catwalk and looking from side to side before turning and walking back the other way (or to the neon pyramid that represents the other end of the stage!), but it also feels to be showing Jesse's desire to be watched yet fear of the gaze as well, and what the intent behind the gaze of others represents. And its also kind of about Jesse's inherent narcissism - Jesse is not exactly a naive figure full of inherent decency being corrupted by the glamorous world of modelling. She's more complicated than that, with her little flickers of self-satisfied smile at how she is acing her lingerie audition. A character like Jesse needs to have that self-knowledge of their own beauty and drive within them to have made that initial leap in the first place, but in a way she has kept the facade of down-home small town girl compared to the other more experienced (and brittle, with a desperate look in their eyes, as if they know their Logan's Run clock is blinking red ever faster!) models, at least for the moment.

In a sense that facade of innocence waiting to be corrupted is the look that attracts the attention, whether from the photographer, the designer or the owner of the seedy motel. Or the make up artist! They all seem to like the untouched, virginal nature of that posture (disturbingly moving ever younger in their search. How can actual 20 year olds, showing their age, compete with an apparent flood of teenage, and pre-teen, runaways?), but perhaps more for the idea of seeing that moment of the 'corruption' as it changes from innocence to experience. Once that moment happens at the end and Jesse voices her self confidence, and fully embraces her narcissistic status as the embodiment of absolute beauty that everyone is yearning for (as well as beginning to take charge of doing her own make up!), she is already 'past her peak' and is too knowing. She has almost already curdled and 'gone off', being too full of herself and the eternal dominance of her beauty over all the wannabes. Jesse has started gaining agency and wilfulness for herself, but that kind of marks the end of her period of dominance and is the ultimate transgressive act in a world where everyone appears meant to only be a posable mannequin for the desires of others, or the raw meat in the production process of an image (In that sense I also find a Cronenberg sense to the film especially in the ending which literalises a concept in horrific terms, but also to Cronenberg's recent novel Consumed). The one consolation from the ending is perhaps that the three women were slightly too late to fully savour an actual naïf. But maybe they did Jesse a favour and validated her beauty by taking her out at her height (Mishima-esque) rather than Jesse having to go through the inevitable downward slide as fashions (and tastes!) change!

I guess following on from that, we have to get to the most notorious aspect of the film:

SpoilerShow

After Jesse rejects her advances, Ruby's necrophilia sex scene at the funeral parlour that she works at (makeup artist to 'The Dead & The Beautiful' - the earth and the stars) followed by the trio's murder and cannibalisation of Jesse. I love the way that it is obviously set up right from the very start of the film with the 'Red Rum' lipstick and the girly bathroom chat ("Are you sex or food?" "She's dessert, because she's so sweet") that anticipates the ending, even if it is still rather surprising for just how literal it all goes! The ending does not feel as if it is meant to come as a shock, but more an inevitability that pushes all of those standard 'bitchy model' conflicts into allegorical, highly stylised areas, quite reminiscent of Beyond The Valley of the Dolls.

There is also something perversely tragic about Ruby's making up of the latest cadaver with Jesse's hairstyle and makeup. She has created Jesse's look but wants the actual person under that. But only ends up making love by proxy to the surface instead. In some ways it is only superficially a necrophiliac scene, but instead more about a frustrated abstraction on Ruby's part. (Not really like Nekromantik!) She is less interested in fooling around with that particular corpse (I was amused by wondering whether for a couple of weeks there every person who died was going to have ended up with Jesse's hairstyle! Even the men!) than by it being a body double for another, soon to be corpse.

And then there is Ruby's Countess Bathory moment in the tub-post murder (which also suggests impermanence and that even the beauty of this one, supposedly special, girl will not last. There will need to be others if the ever aging models want to keep their beauty at their peak. Though it might be just a one off for Ruby), followed by the amazing scene of Ruby back watering the flowerbeds in her housesitter role, with the hose almost being used as a phallic symbol as she pees away the traces of blood from the pool. Which gets fantastically literalised immediately afterwards with that nocturnal, almost occult and ritualistic, scene of nude bathing in the moon and starlight before letting loose a flood from inside herself!

It is also great to see Jena Malone in a role here that feels as if it builds on her character in Sucker Punch in an interesting way, even if I mostly feel that way because of a couple of scenes of conversations taking place through mirrors in dressing rooms!

There is a kind of cosmic-occult thing going on throughout the film. Jesse seems to be the stars wanting to be seen by the moon. Wanting to be seen but also to remain out of people's grasp. Perhaps that is why she is often seen in clouds of dust and glittering dresses, or with sparkling jewels around her eyes. Fragile and ephemeral, like 'natural' beauty itself (there could be connections made to Knight of Cups here, especially in moments when Jesse poses and does a walk across a cityscape for her boyfriend. Or the images of the cracked desert at the beginning of the end credits). But she is still a human being and subject to other people's desires and almost compulsive need to reach out and touch her if they can.

The most interesting thing about the film to me is that all of the photographers and designers seem to be struck by Jesse's 'natural beauty', yet they all waste no time in augmenting her. For that photographer scene she has been made up with those hilarious looking gold elements all over her face, which look silly and unnatural out of context, but make a bit more sense once Jesse is being stroked with gold makeup (compared to her previous 'blooding' in the opening photoshoot scene by the slightly less abstract sort-of boyfriend. Who after initially being presented in an unsettling manner in that opening photoshoot scene turns into a respectful, almost parodically perfect boyfriend, but beautifully and heartbreakingly entirely drops out of the film once he starts being the sensible one and voicing some concerns! But there is an interesting ambivalence there to whether it was the boyfriend or the Keanu Reeves character who tried to get into Jesse's motel room in the middle of the night, and it is laid out in an earlier scene that they both knew about the even more vulnerable girl in the room next door. Maybe it is all a projection on Jesse's part as outside of the sinister camera wielding in the opening scene we never see the boyfriend being anything other than respectful towards her, but perhaps she ends up equating the two men together anyway? They both drop out of the film from that point anyway, to be fully replaced by a synthetic world and unfortunately fake girlfriends who also have no conception of boundaries!), but they are always obscuring and 'ruining' the natural for stunning abstraction. But were they ever in pursuit of that anyway, and more just excited by a fresh, blank canvas to doodle on?

Perhaps a certain amount of beauty is the base but everything is augmented: through surgery, clothes, makeup, even the environments. Everything is composed. In some ways it is the best film about the philosophies underpinning the modern fashion world - Pret-a-Porter used nakedness (NSFW) as a kind of too easy satirical 'Emperor's new clothes' jibe to close out its film, but here the contrast between the bodies and the clothes covering them is all important and more importantly respected as being a powerful aspect of the fashion world (its arguably what makes the fashion world entirely an abstraction in itself, all about clothes that no 'real person' could ever wear! Or at least pull off a look to the level that a professional model does! When it is easier to sculpt the body to fit the line of the clothes better rather than the opposite, we are already in a twisted world!). And in Robert Altman terms Neon Demon is closer to 3 Women (especially in its swimming pool climax!), especially in the idea that women attempt to merge together, more or less successfully! I absolutely love the final scene of the long-legged, blonde Aryan models (one with Heidi pigtails!) confronting each other in that bathroom with the blue swastikas all over it! I guess one did not have the stomach for fame after all! It is a film that is all about character placement, movement through environment and what you are wearing, if anything at all, whilst doing it. All of which illustrates fluctuations in status between people. Its the ultimate fashion show!

But beyond anything else the film that came to mind quite strongly, especially when Cliff Martinez's score seems to have some Brian Eno-style qualities to it in the final section, was Derek Jarman's Sebastiane. Neon Demon is sort of about the same ideas in the end: an impossible beautiful figure, often seen from a detached perspective as they bathe in liquid, is lusted after and when they reject advances become used as a sacrificial figure embodying thwarted desires. The rejected person ends up becoming strongly bonded to them, if only because they were the ones to have destroyed that beauty.

But yes, both this and Only God Forgives are not surprisingly going to be much more niche propositions compared to Drive's almost accidental mainstream success, even if they all feel wonderfully part of Refn's world.