Grade: A+
The opening shot of “The Neon Demon” shows Elle Fanning laying on a gorgeous couch and donning a blue leather dress. Her throat is slit wide open, blood leaking down onto her chest and on the floor beneath her.
Suddenly, we think we know exactly what kind of film we are seeing. It’s a modern-day “Sunset Boulevard.” Or is it?
The camera pans out, and we see the couch is placed not in a cozy living room, but a cold photography studio. The blood is just as fake as Fanning’s death. The great and terrible Oz of this magic trick is revealed as a mute photographer who stares at Fanning with dead man’s eyes.
This extraordinary opening shot uncovers the complexity, austerity and insanity that is to come in “The Neon Demon.” It also comments on the objectification of women in the media.
Like “Valhalla Rising” and “Only God Forgives” before it, this film, written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, is nothing more than a game where we are the ignorant players navigating through a labyrinth constructed by an odd plot and hypnotizing cinematography.
“The Neon Demon” stars Fanning as Jesse, a 16-year-old girl who runs away to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a professional model. Her natural beauty stands out as “a diamond in a sea of glass.”
This doesn’t stand well among all the other models who have sliced, pierced, stuffed, lasered, augmented and reduced their bodies to reach the “same level” of beauty. Enter our antagonists.
Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee make up some of the most despicable and psychotic female villains since the bullies in Brian De Palma’s “Carrie.” They’re like if the Plastics from “Mean Girls” joined the cult of Elizabeth Bathory.
Needless to say, they do some pretty revolting and unforgivable things. Pretty much all of these comprise the third act of the film, which is probably one of the most stressful and nauseating experiences I ever had while sitting in a theater.
However, unlike the torture scene in “Only God Forgives,” I think even the most taboo and vile elements of this movie were perfectly necessary.
The film is white-washed and ultraviolent in the same way our mass media is. Bisexuality, rape, child predators and objectification of women are clearly fetishized. Sound familiar?
The girls don’t commit the horrendous acts they do simply because they’re lunatics. They will do anything to be accepted inside society’s skewed spectrum of beauty. With this film, Refn exposed the hell of vanity and the vanity of hell.
For a director that literally calls himself a “pornographer,” Refn sure knows how to champion for women’s rights. What “Perfect Blue” and “Black Swan” explored for pop music and ballet, “The Neon Demon” showcases with the modeling industry.
Like the aforementioned films, this one also epitomizes the phrase “blink and you’ll miss it.” Though it might lack the all-star cast, it deserves just as much attention and analysis as a movie by Lars von Trier, Darren Aronofsky or Ingmar Bergman.
What these three films also share in common is the prospect of women leaping from the edge of their own dignities and humanities in order to reach perfection.
But what they, and many others, fail to realize is the path to perfection is a downward spiral leading to nowhere. You wouldn’t even know you were there, if not for the guilt in your heart and the blood on your hands that, as Lady Macbeth observed, never washes away.
afaulds@indiana.edu | @a_faulds9615
