"The Neon Demon" is a 2016 movie, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. It's been related to "Perfect Blue" and "Black Swan" and it's been labeled as a "psychological horror film" but what kind of horror is not psychological? I wonder. It's no surprise the film received a mixed response from critics because even when it has remarkable things, it also has more than a few details that damage the final product. The plot is simple as can be: Jesse (Elle Fanning), an aspiring model, moves from Georgia to Los Angeles and as she enters the modeling industry in the city, she finds that her naturalness and youth will be, not only her best asset, but also her doom, 'cause she is "a true diamond in a sea of glass". The thing is that the film takes things maybe a little bit too far, and forces some scenes, that make it look like its spirit of subversion is a fake.

However, what saves the movie from a total disaster it's both, its symbolism and its visual creativeness. Let's start with the visual. The managing of light and colors in the film is a key part. If we pay just a little attention, we can see how the color tone of the scene says what we can expect from it. On the first part of the movie and all the first Jesse's scenes we note pale tones, soft pastel colours, mainly blue and white, well illuminated, matching her sweet, innocent being 'cause she's just arrived, she's the typical country girl with a big dream. As the movie moves forward we begin to miss these colours as we see more intense ones, dark blue, violet, and red, surrounded by shadows and black. Violet is present on the sensual scenes and red, of course, in the literally deathly sequences (red reflects the death of her innocence; and later, colour red domains the sequence of her own death). The movie alternates blue and red as a duality between innocence and violence; and even mixes them as one thing in some scenes (the make up in the runway sequence; or when Jesse's pushed into the empty pool: we see her red blood over the blue tile).

Now, the symbolism part. There are many references in the film but I'm only gonna write about a few of them that I think are key to understand the intention of the director in using specifically these and no others. The main symbol are those triangles we've seen on posters and in one of the central parts of the movies. When Jesse is chosen to close a runway, which means her consolidation as an ascending modeling star, we see a big blue inverted triangle made out of three smallers blue triangles. As we see Jesse approaching the triangles, they begin to change their colour. When they fully turn into red, the face expression of Jesse has completely change, passing from innocene and fear to security, arrogance and a powerful vanity. The vain part of her has devoured the purity that was left (Elle's interpretation of this scene is a demonstration of great acting capacity) and from now on Jesse will be no longer that timid girl but a strong woman, awared of her beauty's supreme power. "I don't wanna be them. They wanna be me" she says 'cause she's become in one of those girl of whom he felt so different from in the first place, she now embraces a world where "Beauty isn't everything. It's the only thing". We should also remind that the inverted triangle is the ancient symbol for Feminine, 'cause of the shape of the female sexual organ. So the three triangles also represent Ruby, Gigi and Sarah, the three women that "welcome" her in LA (a make up artist and two models) and that later will decide her fate.

---

There are another references and details that give meaning to specific scenes in the movie. When Jesse arrives LA, Ruby takes her to a party. They meet Gigi and Sarah in the Bathroom. Gigi talks about her lipstick and 'cause of its color she names it "Red rum". It's a clear reference to Stephen King's book (and Kubrick's movie) "The Shinning", the word REDRUM (Red rum) is MURDER spelled backwards; it's also an anticipation of the film's climax: we see here, reunited, the victim and her future murderers.

After they kill Jesse, they not only eat her in an attempt to absorb that special thing she has and made her so special, but they also bath in her blood. The infamous Countess Elizabeth Báthory was a hungarian noblewoman also know as The Blood Countess 'cause people used to say she bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth, which is kinda what the girls wanna do with Jesse.

---

There are so much more symbolism and references in the movie (like the multiple scenes with mirrors, as a representation of the myth of Narcisuss) but I think it's enough with what we've seen. These symbols, the color, the light and the illumination, all together make a good piece out of a simple, grotesque and excessive script. Bacause of that and Elle Fanning's performance I give this movie a 6/10 rating and I reccommend not to watch it just after eating.