The Neon Demon

«Beauty isn't everything. It's the only thing.» Hermosos créditos iniciales y finales. Y no solo gracias a Martinez, que se perfila para la liga de composición del futuro. Pero con eso termina la euforia. Será una lástima cuando dejemos de esperar con ilusión las películas de Refn y las queramos ver solo por curiosidad. Como si lo intentara conseguir, olvidando que el mayor éxito (no sólo en Cannes) le trajo una historia de corazón (Drive), acompañada de su dirección especial. Y que dirección no es todo. The Neon Demon es una película sencilla con una idea clara. No es un enigma para el emocionante debate intelectual como lo era Solo Dios perdona. Y con esa transparencia y ninguna sorpresa, reemplaza la posibilidad de sentir la historia narrada solo con imágenes por la atracción visual. Y deja al espectador frío e intacto. Pero no se la pueden perder, por lo menos para que vean como se besa babeando el cadáver, porque es algo que en la producción de clase A todavía no hemos tenido. [Cannes] (20.05.2016)

A non-mainstream, visually captivating, hypnotically immersive experience for those who can appreciate Nicolas Winding Refn's extraordinary visual sensibilities. But Refn is also explicitly provocative, completely unnecessarily so, and I could really do without a few scenes (sex in the morgue, yuck!). So when I add up the pros and cons, Refn ends up with a draw, but the kid has talent for more, much more. That's probably how Jaromil Jireš would shoot it when he was making Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, he would be a bit of a pervert and permanently on drugs. (06.10.2016)

Refn is one of those directors that I always wished would make a horror film. The announcement of Neon Demon fulfilled one of my dreams as a cinemagoer and the expectations couldn’t have been higher. After the responses from the première in Cannes, I still believed the film will grip and captivate me instead of sending me to the other side of the fence, with the disgusted and annoyed viewers. But in the end it was worse – it was just meh! Boring. It didn’t arouse any emotions, positive or negative. Audiovisually, it’s beautifully empty. (12.09.2016)

After I watched this movie, I’ve got the feeling that Nicolas Winding Refn is drowning in his own filmmaking utopias. I get that the Neon Demon has a clear premise about modelling, but I don’t get the artistic pathos they’re using to get to the point. Sure, many of the scenes are very interesting and very pleasing to the eye, but as a whole, I feel like the movie’s just a concurrence of different scenes that don’t make much sense. The director’s lucky that he can choose the right music to his video. I fell for it with Drive, but it was a bit harder this time. (22.11.2016)

Pubertal provocation. Refn was able to show the depth of the surface in such a way that a similar emptied mess full of dull script clichés could hardly upset a person. In addition, NRW directs poorly this time. Wooden dialogues, clip sequences that every little talented advertising director can handle, whilst the great Elle and Cliff Martinez's electro-arpeggio take care of all the dynamics. I was expecting hypnosis, but this is a sedative. [Cannes 2016] (20.05.2016)