NEON DEMON (2016)

9/6/2016 - Neon Demon (2016) - 5+/10

This is a film that I have been wrestling with since I saw it. Equal parts brilliant & gorgeous and bland/ & sophomoric. Nicholas Wending Refin is into coldness. He directs lowly emotive actors (Mikelsen, Gosling, Fanning) in detached and minimally expressive roles, almost always capitalizing on the loneliness and frigid atmosphere of human experience. Unfortunately, this bitter vision of another dark part of the world got in its own way, emotionally and formally… Pseudo-auteur paired with juvenility and a question of shallowness.

I suppose he has been infatuated with the faux 80’s astheatic since Drive, using those images and soundtrack amply here. The pounding synth soundtrack was pushy and so often didn't fit with the visual vibes. While the music bothered me in extreme doses, the shots were wonderful. The rich color contrasts and simplicity of plot dynamics allowed for a highly affective mood. Much of it was gloriously composed, but unnecessarily ambiguous while being stacked with meaning. There was an overt whimsical vein pumping through the film’s length, to its detriment.

Toward the end, felt a tad “bait and switch”-ey. The "horror" element felt right in juxtaposition, but wrong in the totality of this film. I am ok with the "shock" scene, but it felt a bit too self serving. I also feel that the male gaze, and its overwhelming reliance upon throughout the film, felt problematic. For a film about women and through these different womens’ points of view, too much of it felt as though it didn’t matter without godly man’s approving view. Similarly, the uber sexualization of all the violence turned me off. Too many rapey and unnecessary elements that took me out of the viewing experience.

This was an odd one. I wanted to like it more than it made me like it. The coldness/burning emotion hidden by a stoic veneer has worn thin with me. It is NWR thing, and certainly meaningful in this film, but I have grown weary of his reliance on it. This film was uneven, causing me to fawn and revolt at the same time.