Review of The Neon Demon (2016) by Lovro H — 29 Aug 2016

The Neon Demon is Nicolas Winding Refn's newest movie that deals with fashion, beauty and death, and I loved it. The story follows Jesse, a 16 year old girl who thinks she hasn't got any talent, except that she's pretty.

So, naturally, she tries to become a model. She does so by going to a meeting with a woman who gets this kind of careers started, I've no idea about fashion so excuse my ignorance, and the woman is impressed by how beautiful Jesse is and she sends right away to a professional photographer who sees something special in her.

And, basically, Jesse gets so far in her career so fast that everyone else becomes jealous and wants to be her. The first hour of the movie, nothing really special happens. She just goes from one place to another, gets pictures taken, talks to other models and hangs out with her friend, Dean.

And even with nothing extraordinary happening, this movie managed to grip me. The way everything is shot and the soundtrack just made me very, very intrigued. The last 30-40 minutes is when things get insane.

The third act is absolutely crazy. It's so disturbing and vile that it will most certainly shock you. And that's what the director himself was going for as he said in one of his interviews. He could've showed what he wanted to show in a different, less vile way, but he chose to show it in this way because it would get a reaction.

It would shock people, it would make people remember it. If it was showed any other way, he would risk people forgetting about it and not getting it. That being said, this movie is mostly visual storytelling.

The colour, the angles and the placement of things on set is very important in getting the story and the characters right. I would delve deep in the movie here, but I really do not want to spoil anything.

But, I will say this. The movie's first act is mostly blue and purple lighting, which symbolizes innocence and beauty, and as the movie progresses we never even see those colours anymore. It starts to get more and more red and gold, which is perfectly seen in the runway scene where Jesse starts off in blue lighting which slowly shifts into red as she becomes more and more obssessed with her beauty and starts to forget about other things in her life.

She also starts wearing more gold outfits, but I think I said too much at this point therefore I will say no more about this. The soundtrack is absolutely fantastic. The songs Cliff Martinez made were perfect for this setting and it made the movie that much more beautiful/vile.

Yes, there are some flaws, though. For example, Keanu Reeves' character is very menacing, but we don't get enough of him on-screen and we don't know that much of him to really understand his actions.

Also, the movie's first hour might seem empty with nothing extraordinary happening, but after seeing the movie, it's become less of a problem to me, because when the movie is done and you're sitting there watching the end credits, even the end credits are awesome, you start to understand more of the movie's meaning and how Refn tried to tell us the meaning.

All in all, I love this movie and I will deffinetely rewatch it again in the near future. It's a movie that has to be seen to be believed. I would highly recommend checking it out, especially if you're into movies like this (Drive, Enemy, Stay etc.

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