The Neon Demon (2016)
Is beauty the highest currency?
Presentation:
Okay hear me out, because this is a complex meta film to review. On one hand, the visuals are stunningly artistic, but the dialogue is cringe. The script is hazily conceived, but the execution is avant garde. The script is objectively absurd, but I ultimately kinda dig it? It feels like Nicolas Winding Refn is attempting to recreate magic from Drive and make a slow motion art house piece in the fashion world, but there are a few reasons it doesn’t quite work here. The generic fashion electronic soundtrack overstates its importance, which is crucial to make the film work. We all remember the iconic soundtrack of Drive and how it filled the long pauses. This film has a ton of negative space in both time and visuals. Long pauses, long pans, empty spaces, this really allows the mood to breathe, though some may find it unbearably boring. I ended up liking the execution of it. Elle Fanning is a great choice in depicting an innocent beauty, but the film kind of gaslights us into thinking she’s some ethereal angel. I mean she does have that pure innocence X factor, but our belief fades in and out.
Analysis:
The film is about beauty, but more than just vanity. It explores the psychological nature of mostly women and their competitive nature. The primary question the film addresses is explicitly stated, “Beauty is the highest currency.” Refn doesn’t necessarily answer this question, but presents each side and the absurdity of the premise to its extreme. The models metaphorically and physically devour each other once they perceive each other as threats, though deep down it could be love and admiration. The make up artist Ruby has an obsession and asks, “Food or sex?” We know the answer now. The amateur photographer boyfriend represents the devil’s advocate, arguing that personality is more beautiful. The designer suggests that beauty is only superficial. I suppose there is some truth to this at the highest echelons of society. The models engage in vapid conversations about social climbing and there are some bluntly cliché caricatures of people in the fashion industry. Some of them do feel spot on. Fashion, desire and beauty, distorts even the purest innocent beauty, and the transformation is clearly in the triangle mirror scene. Once Jesse realizes her beauty and kisses her reflection, she becomes corrupt. Beauty only lasts until you become aware of its power. There’s an interesting point about how manufactured beauty can never live up to natural beauty, which is ironic because of the film’s focus on cinematography over substance. Similarly, in attempting to replicate natural beauty, the fashion industry perverses original beauty by artificially manufacturing it. Is there even such a thing as an organic beauty? Or is it inevitably self aware, bound to be corrupted by its awareness? After eating Jesse, Gigi says she wants it out of her. Does this mean that the vain really destroy, starve themselves and carve just to reject themselves?
There’s a lot of foreshadowing. The very first scene Jesse looks like she is murdered. The cat, wolf and mountain lions appear once she has intimidated the older models and they begin to hunt her in a pack, unfolding like natural predators surrounding a white sheep during the pool scene. She frequently has hallucinations of murder prior to this. Ruby menstruates a flood under a full moon because why not, period and moon are symbolically linked. Gigi throws up the eye perhaps because she is most fake. But this is the extent of any concrete analysis. The film ends confirming that beauty is king and the only thing, but the ridiculousness of the entire film would suggest that it actually isn’t. There are two ways to interpret this film. Either the film is shallow and stupid, hence visual glamor is not the only thing, or the film is an apt critique on our obsession with beauty, cinematography and vanity over substance and writing. Either way, Refn sort of covered his bases, up until the scenes of necrophilia, hugging the grave and moonlight menstruation. He’s trying to say something alright, but it’s all incomprehensible gibberish. The most I can reach is that these models are dead like the corpse and are artificially beautified by makeup, a very unecessary metaphor if you ask me.
Conclusion:
For every flaw of this film, you could argue it was intentional. Based on your interpretation of the themes and metaphors, there are moments that are clearly satirical suggesting that maybe Refn wanted us to think a conversation was banal or an idea to be cliché. Regardless, I think there will be a select few cult following for this film comparable to Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. They may like how it makes them feel or appreciate the idea of pushing the frontiers of art house films, but there’s ultimately not a lot of substance. The Neon Demon is not exactly pointlessly shallow, rather it embraces it and leaves enough benefit of the doubt that maybe it might even be above our heads. In any case, Refn is surely having a kick out of provoking audiences. This film is meant to be experienced, not watched despite its surreal cinematography. It’s such an odd contrast of ideas that might make you question cinema. It may not be the best fashion film, but it describes fashion perfectly.
Recommendations
Every frame a painting.