There is style and chutzpah in this vampiric yarn of supermodel cannibals – as well as a superb central turn from Elle Fanning – yet it lacks the focus and wallop of his earlier workNicolas Winding Refn brings the cinéma du choc to Cannes with a film which is fantastically preposterous and objectionable,but expertly varnished with a sheen of pure evil. It features the excellent Elle Fanning whose insouciant freshness is a reason to keep watching: a quality which oddly survives her inevitable journey to the sad side. There is a very great deal of Bret Easton Ellis in this yarn of vampirism and cannibalism in the LA fashion scene — a world which shocks no-one by turning out to be shallow and vicious. whether Andy Warhol wanted to remake Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction it might turn out like this. Or possibly whether Ferrara wanted to carry out Zoolander 3.
Exasperating though this film can be, Refn shows genuine visual style and a willingness to protract wordless scenes into a nightmarish state beyond narrative. An LA film featuring an empty swimming pool incidentally shows that he is stubbornly unafraid of cliché. He stabs the soundtrack amusingly with Italian-horror synth: throbbing chords for the scary stuff and tinkly xylophone figures for the little-girl corruptible innocence moments. However, and I have to say that it does not have the power of his earlier movies,the potency/absurdity balance is a little off, and unlike his much-mocked and little-understood Only God Forgives it does not satisfyingly stay the course with its central character, and is in fact almost uninterested in what Fanning has to offer as a performer. Related: ‘film blood tastes so good’ – on The Neon Demon set with Nicolas Winding Refn Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com