The Neon Demon - O Demónio de Néon

"Beauty isn't everything. It's the only thing." Belos créditos de abertura e finais. Belos créditos de abertura e encerramento. E não apenas graças a Martinez, que traça o seu perfil para a liga de composição de música do futuro. Mas é aí que termina o entusiasmo. Será uma pena se deixarmos de ansiar pelos filmes do Refn e ficarmos só curiosos para os ver. É como se estivesse a tentar alcançar isto, esquecendo-se de que o seu maior sucesso (e não apenas em Cannes) veio duma história com um coração (Drive: Risco Duplo), destacada pela sua direção distinta. E não apenas a direção por si só. The Neon Demoné um filme simples com uma ideia clara. Não é nenhum enigma para uma discussão intelectual excitante, que Só Deus Perdoa mais ou menos foi. E, nesta transparência e insuspeito, substitui a possibilidade de sentir a história por uma narrativa puramente visual, visualmente apelativa. E deixa o espetador frio e indiferente. Mas é provável que tenha de o ver, pelo menos para os beijinhos de cadáver cheios de babas que ainda não tivemos numa produção de filme A. [Cannes] (20/05/2016)

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)

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. (05/10/2016)

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)

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)