The Neon Demon (2016) - Nicolas Winding Refn

I didn’t realise it was a Nicolas Winding Refn film at first and honestly the trailer looks a bit too avant-garde to have a solid story. I was wrong, it might seems like a deja-vu but yet it is not really something we have seen before. The visuel is definitely an eye-catcher, it is almost too beautifully constructed that we could just put any high fashion name on it and it could totally transform into an advert, Refn consciously put the Logo NWR to mimic that with his recent experience with high fashion perfume ads. [seriously the first few minutes of the film I murmured “Dior, j’adore” the resemblance is too significant.] 

Again like Dive (2011), I was attached to the music right from the start, without doubt when we could manipulate these 2 aspects the rest suddenly seems less important. The Neon Demon is not the case. It has a solid story, it might sound hideous but when we put everything together it shines, literally. 

It’s a simply story about a beautiful 16 year-old went to LA to become a model, we could have guessed what would happen after. But it is more than that, how an innocent girl turns into a narcissist, how terrifying and cruel the modelling industry is. We could just imagine the harm it entails, the horror of this movie is the reality itself. How we perceive beauty is absolutely horrifying. As it says in the film [beauty isn’t everything, it’s the only thing].

There are so many unforgettable scenes, the shower, the eating the eyeball, the party entertainment… etc. I would dare say The Neon Demon is the most audacious film of 2016. (Yes, not even Elle - Paul Verhoeven.)

Frantz (2016) - François Ozon

In Ozon film univers female characters are always significantly important and complex. Anna (Paula Beer) is not an exception. One day she stumbled upon a french man known as Adrien (Pierre Niney) visiting his fiancé’s grave, not long a relationship between a german “widow” and a french men develops in the post-WWI circumstances where the two nations don’t see eye to eye with. 

Later we find out that their relation is built on a lie. Quite a visual interpretation from Ozon, whenever the movie is in colour, it is a lie. Reality, black & white. (Ozon stated in interviews that he wanted to make a film about “le mensonge” (a lie), so technically it is not a spoiler.) The fact that he visually manipulates the images amplifies the degree of the impact, it is like he controls the switches of our hearts. With a flick of his finger we are in this faux impression of happiness and seconds later he brings us back to reality. Some people might think he is trying too hard to manoeuvre the audience, sorry but I am struck. I was so drawn to Adrien’s grief maybe it’s Ozon or the magic of him and Niney and later the dilemma of Anna. No matter which it’s a solid performance.

At times, you wished Ozon had had worked on more on the images since, at least I did got distracted by composition of some imageries. However you are way too busy to play attention to a lot of the details, Frantz is 90% in black & White and 90% in German. You have to be fluent in both languages in order the ignore the subtitles. Maybe that’s why? I know what I am suggesting it’s not well justified but still I enjoyed the experience.

Life is cruel and we all live in a lie (in one way or another), that’s the best I could do without giving too much away on what’s the story is about. Ozon never really disappoints so just watch it.