Starring: Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, Abby Lee, Desmond Harrington, Alessandro Nivola, Karl Glusman, Christina Hendricks, Keanu Reeves
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Runtime: 118 mins. Reviewed in Oct 2016
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It is a good idea to take a deep breath before going to see a film by Nicolas Winding Refn. He likes to take on rather tough and demanding subjects, even in his early films when he was very young, Pusher, about drug dealers in Copenhagen in the mid-90s. in more recent years he has made the film about prison, Bronson, a somewhat lurid film about Los Angeles, Drive, and an excursion to Bangkok and violence, Only God Forgives. This time we are back in Los Angeles – and lurid again.
The film opens strikingly with a young girl posing in a glamorous gown on a divan but her throat cut and blood clotted – but then she goes off to remove her make up. The world of The Neon Demon is that of fashion and fashion photography. In fact, throughout the film, many of the sets are made to look as if the performers are in a photo-shoot and close-ups and couples talking are filmed in the style that would be striking in publications.
The young girl is Jessie, Elle Fanning, who turns out to be very under age although she is advised to tell everyone she is 19, arriving in Los Angeles like so many other hopefuls, dreaming of a career in the movies on television or modelling… She is very pretty and knows it, not afraid to say it. And she is ambitious, self-assured with a touch of the narcissistic. And, she is in luck with her looks.
The initial photograph was taken by a friend she met online, Dean (Karl Glusman) who is attracted to her but she is intent on her career. Despite the glamour, she has to live in a seedy motel with a rough manager, played by Keanu Reeves, who is upset when her room is trashed, only to find that a wildcat has been trapped there.
But, she gets an interview with an agent, Christina Hendricks, who gets her a photo shoot with a very grim and “artistic” photographer, Desmond Harrington, which leads to an interview with a fashion designer, Alessandro Nivola, and her career seems to be on the way.
In the meantime, she meets make-up artist, Ruby (Jena Malone) who befriends her but it is obvious to the audience, if not to Jessie, that this is a lesbian attraction. Also in the retinue are two very artificial models, one who has experienced a great deal of reconstruction, the other tall and failing to get employment (both played by Australian actresses Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee).
The storytelling is both real and surreal, much of it played in the dark, at other times in bright sunlight and vistas of Los Angeles. Much of it is a dreamlike, especially from the point of view of Ruby and her fantasies about Jessie, especially a disturbing scene in the mortuary where Ruby works in make up for the corpses.
In fact, the film moves to some motifs from horror films at the end, with an offscreen explanation that the audience might interpret as metaphorical until we realise it is real, and think to ourselves, no, Refn is not really going to show that… – and he does, leaving some of the characters bewildered and the audience somewhat stunned and bewildered as well.
With the focus on modelling and the young women models, the issue can be raised about the impact of “the male gaze” and the objectifying of women – but the film also raises the question of “the female gaze” and both gay and straight perspectives.
The films of Nicolas Winding Refn are quite unique in their way, expertly crafted, disturbing content, and certainly not for everyone’s taste.
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