The Neon Demon, the latest by Nicolas Winding Refn

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > The Neon Demon, the latest by Nicolas Winding Refn

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

I knew absolutely nothing about this film going in. Didn't even watch the trailer. Which makes it an odd coincidence that I saw this just as I got on a giallo kick again. I had just seen Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye and Kill Baby Kill last weekend, and I watched Tenebre after the showing.

I don't know much about fashion or modeling, but my first impression was that Jesse is the Gemma Ward type.

There was only one other couple in the theatre, and they walked out during the necrophilia scene.

My main problem with this film is, what is there left to do with my life now that I've seen Jena Malone naked and drenched in blood?

# ¿ Jun 26, 2016 03:19

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:53

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

Josh Lyman posted:

But then what makes her different from any other 16-year-old model?

To me this film is very much about the commodification (and thereby destruction?) of beauty. Jesse knows she's beautiful and knows she can sell it. She says there's nothing else about her worth remembering and nothing in life besides basking in adoration of her beauty. She's the perfect sacrificial victim.

The elements of witchcraft are fun, but I don't see anything redemptive or holy about what Ruby does to Jesse. Everyone around Jesse sees beauty as a commodity, something that can be bought, sold, traded, lost, or consumed in various ways; Ruby's not an exception. The Designer is just the one who articulates the ugly worldview of the film's characters.

Josh Lyman posted:

My only complaint coming out of the film was a disconnect between movie time and real time. Jesse definitely seemed like an ingenue at the beginning, but her transformation, specifically in that scene where she shruggs off her "boyfriend" at the restaurant, seemed to happen too quickly from the viewer's perspective, like there needed to be 15 minutes of scenes in between.

I see what you mean. The events could have taken place over days, weeks, or months. But I wasn't particularly bothered about it.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2016 19:01

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

MinibarMatchman posted:

Am I the only one who took the mentions of her parents being non-entities and Jessie talking about how her mother said she was dangerous as a potential build-up to Jessie being some sinister person the whole time, and maybe revealing she killed her own parents? Maybe it was only because of how quickly she made the turn to The Demon side and how she had those weird precognitions but I thought right up til the climax that we'd have a reveal that there was something not quite right about her, even beforehand.

This isn't a new trick; I occasionally thought of another film but couldn't put my finger on it, and it was The Witch. The Last Exorcism too, I suppose. Sinister events swirling around someone make you question if they aren't somehow complicit, despite any appearances to the contrary.

MinibarMatchman posted:

She treated the others like poo poo but never expected vengeance for it?

She's pretty.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2016 20:58

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

I can't help but see witches because of all the connections to Bava and Argento's work.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 16:27

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

I'm fairly certain Hannibal Lecter is an atheist.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 19:38

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

Now that I think about it, Bava's early work was also confusing with regard to the whole "Is she a witch or a vampire or both and maybe also a ghost or something?" issue.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 20:06

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

Anal Surgery posted:

So, do you think the end of the film has kind of a Hegelian thing going on? (sorry everyone, I'm being that guy)

The three gals consume Jesse to steal her youth and beauty or whatever. Or just to continue the way things have always been in Los Angeles.

Sarah is the Thesis, consuming the young and becoming more beautiful and noticed by the photographer, propping up the system as it is.
Gigi is the Antithesis, unable to handle having Jesse inside of her, unable to hold it together trying to get rid of Jesse, eventually killing herself.
Ruby would then be the Synthesis, consuming the young, but letting it pass through her peacefully on a moonlit night. Is this a "new way"?

If that reading holds (and I'm still working on it), it makes me wonder what the "synthesis" means for the denizens of Los Angeles. It feels like Ruby would represent a hopeful step forward, but the Neon Demon doesn't strike me as a hopeful film.

(My knowledge of Hegel is limited to Philosophize This podcasts and Zizek videos, so feel free to call me out on that!)

The world the characters operate in is buoyed by a steady supply of women like Jesse to defile and consume. The differences between how Sarah, Gigi, and Ruby deal with it are hopeful for Ruby, perhaps, but not for the future of the world.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2016 14:51

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

Dorian Gray, the Dallamano version? I've been meaning to see that. The library here has a surprising collection of Italian 60s and 70s stuff.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2016 14:11

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

THORIUM posted:

So I don't think the following reviewer would like that alt title I mentioned, "Cunts: The Movie."

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/25/12024924/neon-demon-review-refn-necrophilia-scene

This entire review absolutely slays me. She is so so very angry, and she doesn't understand the film at all -- only superficially (hint hint).

Reading this review is like watching someone stare at a door with an exit sign over it, blink a few times in confusion, then turn 90 degrees and run as fast as they can face-first into a concrete wall.

So tonight I'm going to show my wife The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2016 14:01

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

quote:

It�s both real and fake, when you think about it. And isn�t every photo shoot just murdering... the soul?

Does Jezebel hire 14 year olds to write movie reviews now?

# ¿ Jul 1, 2016 19:30

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

IM_DA_DECIDER posted:

A weird man made this movie so everything should be interpreted as very sexist, oh wait lots of women were involved, better give it the benefit of the doubt then, no wait the guy says weird things so the movie sucks cause its sexist - a presumably paid reviewer of movies

Drive was Refn's most commercially successful and accessible film. Maybe this film just needed an indie-pop song playing over the credits that was on-the-nose to the point of being incredibly cheesy.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2016 21:15

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

The Neon Demon

1.50 oz. Marie Brizard anisette
1.00 oz. Flor de Cana Extra Secco
0.50 oz. lime juice
0.25 oz. grenadine

Garnish with blueberries.

IM_DA_DECIDER posted:

And redhead Jena Malone is my waifu anyways.

I will fight you.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2016 01:16

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

Who do you think Keanu was really talking about when he said there was a 13-year-old runaway in the room next door?

# ¿ Jul 6, 2016 15:32

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

Guys, I told you, Keanu is the one who fucks the mountain lion.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2016 19:37

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

Pretty sure the arthouse answer to Zack Snyder is Zack Snyder.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2016 14:35

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

The notion that Bay and Snyder are dudebros who tripped over their own dicks into their careers is most dimwitted meme in film fandom. I take it as a red flag that a critic shouldn't be taken seriously. And I say this as someone who would rather take a punch to the face than watch Transformers 2 again.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2016 16:52

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

It's okay to be excited about good movies, no matter what the Internet says.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2016 00:32

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

I think having Jessie win the fashion industry would make it too much like a weird counterpart to Nightcrawler.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2016 23:32

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

I didn't see A Serious Man because a friend described it as "a movie where someone kicks a dog over and over and you're meant to laugh at the dog."

# ¿ Jul 14, 2016 13:18

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

Nice try, but I'm waiting for the Blu-Ray to purchase it.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2016 19:29

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

I wanted to like Suspiria but it just doesn't work for me like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Or even Tenebrae for that matter.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2016 14:39

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

Although she was very impressed with it, my wife wanted to flee the theatre immediately because she couldn't stand the song over the end credits. Ironically, she keeps playing the end-credits song from Drive. I like Drive, but that song is Barney the Purple Dinosaur levels of cheesy.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2016 20:47

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

On reflection, the clothes that Sarah and Gigi are wearing for the concluding photo shoot are not so much "bondage" as "Frankenstein's monster strapped to the table." In particular the "sutures" on their chests.

Edit: I found a digital copy of the Italian poster, which is just perfect. (It's not a different image. Just written in Italian.)

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Sep 26, 2016

# ¿ Sep 26, 2016 14:57

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

They're literal vampires. The problem of distinction in a film like this is that they can't be actual vampires--because there's no such thing as an actual vampire.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2016 19:29

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

Vince MechMahon posted:

I would agree with that, too. It's mainly the stuff with Ruby that I think skirts the line between the reality of the film and metaphor. Either way it's a fun thing to think about.

It's fun to think about, but is there such a thing?

For comparison, since I'm about to rewatch it in a few days, nothing purely fantastical happens in Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht. But Dracula is obviously a vampire.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2016 20:38

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

Vince MechMahon posted:

To be quite honest, while I do go back and forth on it, I do believe that Ruby at the very least is a real rear end vampire, and that this act does give the other women, at the very least Sarah, the "powers" that Jesse inherently has. But I have a friend who is mostly convinced the other way around, that at that point in the film it becomes a complete surreal metaphor and nothing should be taken literally. I think they're both valid.

revdrkevind posted:

I say both. It's like people clinging too hard to one interpretation of whether Deckard is a replicant in Blade Runner. I think the movie is stronger if you let it play. Clearly Ridley had an opinion and made his opinion clear, but if you let it play I think it makes for a better experience.

The distinction is that the Replicant is at least a specific thing defined in the plot of Blade Runner, whereas "vampire" is a fuzzy constellation of ideas.

Vince, I think I'd respond to your friend by being a jerk and telling them that of course Ruby isn't really a vampire--she's really an actress named Jena. But Jena is playing a woman who murders the object of her lust to rejuvenate herself, meaning she's a vampire.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2016 21:18

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

We don't know anything for certain about what happened in the next room. For all we know, Ruby hosed a mountain lion in there.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2016 20:07

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

mary had a little clam posted:

My favorite part of Dumb and Dumber is when Lloyd Christmas literally steals the cop's gun and gets shot to death by police, then literally uses Lost Highway powers (or Mulholland Drive powers?) to literally relive his life a different way from that moment. In a similar vein, my favorite part of discussions is when one party affects a willfully obtuse demeanor to argue for a narrow, reductive approach to art for... sport, I guess?

Dismissing as irrelevant the question of whether or not a movie vampire is really/actually/literally a vampire is the opposite of narrow and reductive. The reductive approach is to get too hung up on the idea of the film as, essentially, a virtual reality simulation. It's something I'm familiar with because it's endemic in the tabletop roleplaying hobby. I'm not making sport of anyone.

For comparison, coming at it from the same direction: The vampires in Near Dark are obviously being marked out as something not physically human: they have superhuman strength, and sunlight makes them explode like a frozen turkey in a pressure cooker. But the worthwhile question to ask is not how it works, but what it means.

Now imagine coming at it from the opposite direction: Say a Star Wars movie showed you someone who does Jedi stuff: moves stuff with their mind, fights with a lightsaber, feels disturbances in the plot, stuffy and wears a robe. But then a character points out that they're not really a Jedi because their midichlorian test came back negative. That would be incoherent on every level.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2016 14:04

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:53

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 22 hours!

Vince MechMahon posted:

Your wife is crazy, that Sia song it ends with is great.

I asked her about it; she likes indie pop but, as I guessed, she just reflexively dislikes anything with a whiff of "pop diva" about it.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2016 16:24

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > The Neon Demon, the latest by Nicolas Winding Refn