The Neon Demon (Amazon Studios, 2016)
A recurring criticism for the films of Nicolas Winding Refn is that they elevate style over substance. It is resoundingly clear from their neon-drenched aesthetic, minimal dialogue, and meticulously calculated staging that he is a scrupulous perfectionist, sparing nothing in achieving absolute artistic fulfillment. In The Neon Demon (2016), this obsessive attention to detail results in a beautifully haunting narrative revolving singularly around the societal worshipping of beauty and its supreme worth: as such, is the bankable, sole value for women in the modeling industry. The film’s narrative centers on an incredibly young, greenhorn starlet new in town who is bound to make it big no matter what it takes. Her innocence and embodiment of untainted, wholly natural beauty ruffle some feathers with some of the more physically modified models in her realm.
The Neon Demon features dewy-eyed Jesse (Elle Fanning) as this innocent provocateur who plunges into the vapid world of commoditized beauty, possessing that special flair that sets her apart from the dozens of pristine but nearly emaciated models that certainly reach Alberto Giacometti’s spindly standards. This intangible glow about her could be attributed to her youth: she holds the purity of beauty that is yet untainted, catching the eye of a blasé fashion designer who designates her to be the centerpiece of a runway show. She quickly rises up to the upper echelons of the trade, and after this peak as the duly established up-and-comer, her world begins to crumble with merciless velocity. After fleeing to what appears to be a safe hideaway, it appears that more than just destruction is intended for Jesse: friends become enemies, her corporeal form becomes no longer hers, and she plummets down (both literally and figuratively) from the paramount to a mere casualty of the vocation.
Along the way in Jesse’s quest to hit it big, she strikes up a friendship with Ruby (Jena Malone), a makeup artist who moonlights at a morgue. By day and night, she gives both models and cadavers equal cosmetic attention, seemingly content crafting the aesthetic of both from the sidelines. Ruby quickly becomes a maternal stand-in for Jesse’s absent mother, insisting that she call at any time if she needs anything. Two of Ruby’s model friends quickly find problems with Jesse’s rapid ascension up the totem pole, each feeling threatened in their earned place in their universe of pulchritude. In the pair rectifying Jesse’s honest, natural fortune to work in their favor, the narrative shifts into a feral quest for vengeance; logic and rationality become replaced by the supernatural and sinister. Even in the introduction of one of the oldest ploys in the genre, a mysteriously uninhabited mansion that seems to hold more than its inhabitants, Refn’s previously unseen capacity for visceral horror emerges from the film’s increasingly murky veneer.
The auteur’s films have always been divisive and this is likely to be his most severing yet for its loaded content and attack on such a pervasive element of our modern world. While it is easy to label it as misogynistic or merely embellished filmmaking, that is missing the point of the narrative and falling into a shallow assessment of the film’s expectedly brazen approach of delivery.
The Neon Demon (Amazon Studios, 2016)
Not only is The Neon Demon a sharp critique of the modeling industry and society’s value of women’s beauty as their ultimate worth, it is a brilliantly crafted narrative which refuses to explain itself in literal terms. Before Jesse is effectively chewed up and spat out by the industry, she faces a predatory dynamic with Ruby’s pair of model friends, mirrored in the appearance of a big cat’s intrusion into the starlet’s space. Without revealing an appropriately juicy spoiler, when one of the pair of models is overcome by weakness in the film’s stunning conclusion she is brought to terms by the relentlessness of the world which she has chosen to inhabit. It becomes clear that one cannot fill the interior (soul) with the same essence of the exterior (body): they are profoundly separate entities and cannot be fused into a whole, despite the extremity of the attempt. Furthermore, the constant presence of mirrors speaks to each character’s carefully crafted duplicity, suggesting that the beauty of The Neon Demon’s aesthetics masks an ugly reality of women going to extremes to reach a depthless perfection that does not extend beyond their pristine yet inauthentic flesh.
In this way the film’s form absolutely fits its function, especially in the occasionally clunky dialogue which makes us sympathize with Jesse’s foreignness to this new world. This is also the director’s first foray into a narrative featuring women in lead roles, all of which hold maximum power in their domain (in spite of the fact that modeling is ultimately dependent on men for its curation). Differing considerably in depiction, The Neon Demon’s men (with one exception) are painted as exploitative scum: among them are an unyielding photographer (Desmond Harrington), a greasy motel manager (Keanu Reeves), and a dogmatic fashion designer (Alessandro Nivola). They are the movers and shakers, the ones who utilize these young women as a means to achieve their own ends, and they all give different insights to the different stages of how these aspiring models are received and treated.
The Neon Demon (Amazon Studios, 2016)
Refn’s Kubrickian framing and propensity for visual storytelling are incredibly striking aspects of his style, but the film’s vast depth of sadism will turn off many viewers. The overloaded conclusion is ambiguous to consider, in that it could be a mockery of artifice in its absurd extent – but ultimately the film doesn’t care about tying things up or a single interpretation. This is certainly part of the director’s draw: narratives are not explained but rather presented with the intent of provoking the viewer to think. Refn doesn’t make easy or egalitarian films: rather, he crafts narratives in which it is blatant that he does not care about any possible dissent (his previous feature Only God Forgives was booed after its premiere at Cannes). His style and velocity will not please all, but every one of his films is an unrivaled cinematic experience, and The Neon Demon is the most entrancing yet.
A particular sequence in which Jesse, after being told at her first fashion show that she will be its closing act, illustrates the immersive hypnosis of the narrative. As though the audience is instantaneously submerged in her rapture upon hearing this, it cuts from before the show to various high-contrast, neon-drenched angles of Jesse as herself but also as other. She encounters a new form of herself, the successful model who no longer is just known as one of the myriad small-town girls seeking to be someone in LA, and her metamorphosis manifests in malefic visions. Mirrors come into play as well as recurring triangular imagery that creates an aura where reality and fantasy are visually diverged into a realm of otherness. This is what resonated most from the narrative, superseding even the more gruesome imagery in the last act: it illustrates full embodiment of the show-don’t-tell style, which is rare to find in directors working at Refn’s caliber.
The mythological ethos of the narrative is but one of its many fascinating components, and for style alone this is an exemplar of artistic originality. Along with a score by Cliff Martinez that incarnates the narrative’s enigma in electronic twinkles, and immaculate cinematography by Natasha Braier, The Neon Demon should not be missed by any fan of the auteur. It would be a waste of the film’s mesmerizing effect to see it any place other than a theater so that the saturated colors and hypnotic synths wash over and encapsulate you within Refn’s mesmerizing vision of sacred flesh and empty beauty.
Author Biography
Patrick Dunham is a junior Comparative Literature major at the University of Oregon and a native of Austin, Texas. Upon graduating, he will pursue work in programming film festivals, book/poetry publishing, and the editorial side of magazines in his adopted home of the Pacific Northwest.
Film Details
The Neon Demon (2016)
USA
Director Nicolas Winding Refn
Runtime 118 minutes
