The Neon Demon (2016)

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Screenplay by Mary Laws, Nicolas Winding Refn, Polly Stenham
Starring: Elle Fanning, Keanu Reeves
Music by: Cliff Martinez
Language: English

Rating: 3/5

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Nicolas Winding Refn is definitely one of the best directors of our time – or at least one of the most promising – and he surely confirmed this with The Neon Demon, a glamorous, dark psychological horror where every scene is composed with an aseptic, elegant, obsessive attention to detail.

This is the style the Danish director is developing in years, something actually distant from Bronson’s aesthetics: as Refn finally entered Hollywood’s realm (with Drive), his style turned into something more sophisticated and visionary, something that lies between Tom Ford and David Lynch. It was already possible to witness this change in Only God Forgives but it’s with The Neon Demon that Refn’s intentions became utterly clear.

The problems is Refn is also becoming so self-absorbed to keep referencing his own aesthetics, leaving the rest aside. Like? A good plot. Or a proper characterization of his mannequins, who now look all empty and vague. And, sure, it’s cool to make minimal, slow-paced, aseptic movies starring young, good looking, soul-less actors like Ryan Gosling (Drive, Only God Forgives) or Elle Fanning, but the result is no one can actually feel some empathy for the characters they are asked to interpret or relate to them. Poor acting skills? Could be, but this does not seem to be the case. Director’s choices are here to blame in my humble opinion, even though I still believe Refn has a great potential to express.

The Neon Demon is about Jesse (Elle Fanning), an aspiring model whose natural beauty captivates everyone around. It does not take a long time before this overwhelming charm generates unwanted attentions and arouse envy among other girls within the industry. And Jesse, who is initially depicted as a helpless, naïve, little thing with a strong lack of confidence, soon decides to fully embrace the power of her beauty and turns into a narcissistic, arrogant teen revealing her true, “demonic” nature.

The movie does not show much from a kinky perspective, but being entirely focused on beauty and fascination it transpires sexual tension and subtle eroticism in all its length. Even when sex is completely missing from the scene: the test shoot with Jack, the professional photographer, is a good example of that. 

*** SPOILER ALERT: SKIP IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO WATCH THE MOVIE *** 

No sex is involved but still, it’s there, as Jack, who shows an indubitable dominant character, orders Jesse to pose fully naked, paint her body with his hands and mold her posture like a sculptor with a piece of clay. Yes, here I am talking about some kind of objectification.
The dream where Keanu Reeves - now a sinister motel manager - forces the girl to keeps her mouth wide as he slides a big knife in her throat might also trigger some dirty minds.

Paradoxically, the most explicit scenes are not as interesting as those where sex is entirely missing: there is, for example, a long lesbian, necrophiliac scene (don’t be surprised: blood baths and cannibalism are also featured in this elegantly gross movie) but it’s probably there just for the director’s pleasure in shocking the audience 

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What we have in the end is not a must-watch masterpiece but if on a Friday night you have nothing better to do, well, The Neon Demon might still be an esthetically pleasant way to waste two hours of your time with a plot-less, visionary movie from a director I hope to see soon at his best again.

The Night Porter (1974)

Directed by Liliana Cavani
Written by Liliana Cavani
Starring: Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling
Music by: Daniele Paris
Language: English

Rating: 5/5

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Liliana Cavani's Night Porter is a controversial, provocative movie entirely based on the so-called Stockholm syndrome, the psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy toward their captors. In this particular case, the captor is Max, a a former Nazi SS officer (played by Dirk Bogarde), and the victim is Lucia, a concentration camp survivor (played by Charlotte Rampling).

The movie is set years after World War II, in Vienna, where Max works as a night porter, but alternates also flashbacks showing the couple during the times at the concentration camp, where Max used to be Lucia's protector. As Max and Lucia accidentally meet again years after the end of the war, they immediately fall back into their sadomasochistic relationship.

The Night Porter has to be celebrated for the bravery of the director, who dared to portray such a thorny topic resorting to a Nazi Holocaust narrative. It was not easy, in particular considering when the movie was shot and the self-righteous Italian culture (Liliana Cavani is an Italian film director and screenwriter). In addition, there is an aspect that should always be underlined: the Night Porter filmmaker's is a woman. So it is possible to say that Liliana Cavani did to cinema what, twenty years before, Anne Desclos did to literature: showing that the interest for sadomasochistic relationships is not typical of men only.

La Pianiste (2001)

Directed by Michael Haneke
Written by Michael Haneke, Elfriede Jelinek (novel)
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Benoît Magimel
Language: French

Rating: 5/5

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Based on Nobel Prize for Literature winner Elfriede Jelinek's novel, La Pianiste can be undoubtedly considered the best Haneke's movie (so far). Helped by the masterful Isabelle Huppert's interpretation, the Austrian director here perfectly portrayed the sexually and emotionally repressed piano teacher, who is the main character of this intimist drama. 

Erika is in fact a cold, castigated woman in her forties who still lives with her mother - a controlling, asphyxiating figure who tries to take her daughter away from every kind of frivolousness and instead pushes her hard to succeed in her professional life. The relationship between the two women is unhealthy and based on unresolved issues that slowly consume them both. Moreover the cumbersome presence of her mother stops Erika from having normal, healthy intimate relationships, which she replaces with a long list of paraphilia: she enters a sex shop to watch porn and smell semen from the used tissues she finds in the video cabin; she walks a drive-in theater to stare at couples having sex; she self-inflicts genital injuries. 

The only one who tries to shake Erika from her lonely, severe routine is Walter, a young engineering student and talented piano player who claims he falled in love with her. Erika, who initially rejects his exhausting avances, in the end will drag him in a world of humiliation and masochism the student can hardly understand. Powerful.

Love Object (2003)

Directed by Robert Parigi
Written by Robert Parigi
Starring: Desmond Harrington, Melissa Sagemiller, Rip Torn
Music by: Nicholas Pike
Language: English

Rating: 4/5

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As Wikipedia summarizes, Love Object is the story of Kenneth (Desmond Harrington), "an efficient but socially awkward technical writer who develops an obsessive relationship with Nikki, a realistic sex doll he purchases". Unfortunately this summary is incomplete, as it does not mention Lisa, the co-worker Kenneth falls in love with (Kenneth thinks of her when he order his "tailor-made" doll). Love Object is therefore the story of the bizzarre love triangle (yes, I love New Order) between Kenneth, Lisa and Nikki.

Apparently the plot has nothing to do with William Wyler's The Collector - Love Object is not a remake, definitely - but still, there are many common elements between the two movies. Too many to think of some randomness. Love Object actually looks like a tribute to Wyler's movie. 

*** SPOILER ALERT: SKIP IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO WATCH THE MOVIE ***

Let's consider the main characters, for example. Both Frederick and Kenneth are shy, lonely, socially awkward middle class workers around the same age. They both have a boring job (Frederick is a bank clerk, Kenneth writes technical manuals) and stupid colleagues who jerk them around. They both develop an obsessive attention for a girl in particular - Miranda, the art student from The Collector, and Lisa, the intern who loves writing and dancing waltz - and both Frederick and Kenneth come to the conclusion they have to kindap their beloved ones. Even the final is exactly the same: both girls die, Frederick and Kenneth are not prosecuted for their crimes but labeled as victims and plan to start the cycle all over again with a new girl.

*** KEEP READING FROM HERE ***

From a BDSM / kinky perspective, Love Object is pure gold. It contains scenes of submission (Nikki becomes a sort of Mistress to Kenneth), restraints (Lisa got bound and gagged), sexual ecouterism (Kenneth jerks off listening to his landlord having sex) and obviously agalmatophilia (the paraphilia involving sexual attraction to a statue, doll, mannequin), sexual objectification and dollification (Kenneth first creates Nikki in Lisa image; then expects Lisa to become like Nikki). Unmissable.