Tuesday 12 July 2016

The Neon Demon (18)

I first encountered Nicolas Winding Refn when Drive hit the big screen. When that was followed up by Only God Forgives, I was hooked.

So it was with a heady mixture of excitement and confident certainty that I settled into my seat ready for his latest offering.

Yes, it was going to be off-beat and more style than substance, but you expect that...



And I wasn't wrong. There's whole boatloads of style. This film is styled up the wazoo.

And the imagery. What imagery. Seriously, it's stunning.

Which is good, because there's bloody loads of it.

And sub-text too. You can't swing a designer shoe for the subtext.

It's just a pity he forgot to have any actual, you know, text above that.

In its simplest, boiled down form, The Neon Demon is a critique on the world of fashion and modelling and chasing your dreams to the bright lights of the big city.

And you can have a lot of fun ticking off the fairytales that amble past you slowly and stylishly, and there's plenty of time to ponder how Romeo And Juliet fits in to all that too.

And you might as well dwell on that, because there's precious little else to dwell on.

In showing the fashion industry to be shallow and image-led, Refn has taken Neon Demon to such an extreme he's created the perfect film equivalent.

Which is either screamingly ironic or bloody annoying, depending on how you're feeling at the time.

You can also wallow in the beautiful modelling, the beautiful fashion scenes, the rich, lush tones used to such great effect.

And again, you might as well, because bar one scene Demon takes Refn's penchant for one-paced films to a whole new, very flat level.

Amazingly, despite this wave of negativity, The Neon Demon isn't a bad film - it's just trying too hard.

On the plus side, there are some nicely tense moments, some delightfully twisted elements and you come out of the cinema feeling like you need to shower in bleach.

It's not a totally wasted evening.

But it's too clever for its own good and is half an hour too long.

Elle Fanning puts in a great performance as new girl in town Jesse, while Jena Malone oozes malevolence as Ruby - but after that, they all kind of blend into one.

And yes, that's the point - that looks are everything and no one is an individual - but that doesn't make for an engaging film.

Quite by chance, I found myself in the captioned screening and I was told that you don't notice the subtitles after a bit.

And the helpful chap on the ticket desk was right. What he wasn't to know was that's because the dialogue is so sparse the captions aren't needed that much.



Somewhere in here is a blistering take-down of an industry obsessed with image.

What would have been nice is if an actual plot could have been casually inter-woven, if only to tie all the beautiful scenes together.

As it is, you're left wondering what the hell you've just watched but knowing it looked good.

2 comments:

  1. I've heard so many interesting comments on this film. I have been a bit hesitant since I'm not a big Refn fan.

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    1. I'm a big fan, and as you can see I struggled.
      If you're not a big fan, this isn't one of his more accessible films. You won't feel like you've missed anything major ;)

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