This article first appeared in MovieJawn’s Fall 2020 issue featuring noir flicks, available here.

by Fiona Underhill, Contributor

2016 saw the release of two divisive and controversial LA neo-noirs which would provoke extreme love-hate reactions from audiences. In June, Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon was released – a horror film which prompted outrage and walk-outs from some. And in December, Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals was released, a multi-genre film that has aspects of a Western in its desert-set scenes, as well a comprising some classic LA noir elements. As you have probably guessed, I love both of these films and think they’re among the best of the decade. The Neon Demon, in particular, fulfills many tropes of the LA noir, which is its own specific brand of the genre.

Noirs have different ‘flavors,’ very much depending on which city they are set in. New York and Chicago are primarily what we think of when we think of black-and-white noirs set in the world of gangsters. Skyscrapers naturally lend themselves to being shot in monochrome and this world of shadows and silhouettes, back alleys and speakeasies makes the perfect setting for classic noir. New Orleans noir has another flavor again – as can be seen in the sultry The Big Easy (1986), Angel Heart (1987) and last year’s detective story Out of Blue (2018).

West Coast noir, set mainly in San Francisco and Los Angeles – the world of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James M Cain and James Ellroy – has its own distinctive, very different atmosphere. While many great black-and-white noir movies have been made which showcase LA county well - including Kiss Me Deadly, Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce - Southern California naturally lends itself to color. This is why Los Angeles feels like the natural home of the neo-noir, with Blade Runner probably being the most famous example. Whether it’s the neon-drenched city streets, or the Spanish-Colonial homes of the suburbs dotted with palm trees (like where Lynn Bracken lives in LA Confidential), or the modernist homes of the Hollywood or Malibu hills (as seen in The Limey) – color really brings out the best in this setting.

Color is certainly something at the forefront of Nicolas Winding Refn’s work and he especially loves neon. As Kiss Me Deadly opens with a barefoot woman in a trenchcoat running down a road, the opening shot of The Neon Demon also replicates a classic thriller cold open, although this time drenched in Refn’s signature use of color and blood. We see the staring, dead eyes of a young and beautiful corpse, with the throat slashed. We see a man with predatory eyes, looking murderous and sadistic. But then the reveal -this is a model and a photographer, not a killer and victim.

Jesse (played by the 16-17 year old Elle Fanning) is an ingenue and an orphan, new to the city of dreams from the sticks, full of hope and with stars in her eyes. This trope has frequently been used in LA noirs, but it is usually aspiring actresses who are the love interest or murder victim. We see it in LA Confidential with Lynn Bracken (who came to LA as an aspiring actress but ended up a Veronica Lake lookalike sex worker) and in The Black Dahlia with Elizabeth Short (another aspiring actress, who ends up making pornographic films which border on snuff movies) - both based on James Ellroy novels. As with Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, which centers aspiring actress Betty Elms (Naomi Watts), The Neon Demon has an aspiring model as its protagonist.

The villains of The Neon Demon are not gangsters, corrupt cops or even really men at all. There are, of course, a few creepy individuals such as the photographer Jack (Desmond Harrington) who immediately tells Jesse to “lose the clothes,” the fashion designer Roberto (Alessandro Nivola) who calls her “a diamond in a sea of glass” or Hank (Keanu Reeves), manager of the seedy motel where Jesse lives (a classic noir setting) who talks about the young girls cast adrift at his establishment as “some real Lolita shit.” But instead, the actual source of danger to Jesse comes from women in positions of authority over her, such as the head of the modelling agency who signs her – Roberta (Christina Hendricks), two experienced models who are immediately jealous of her – Gigi (Bella Heathcote) and Sarah (Abbey Lee – who gives maybe the best performance in the film) and most insidious of all, a make-up artist who poses as a kindly mentor to her – Ruby (Jena Malone). As with Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, Gigi and Sarah are obsessed with youth, even though they are only in their early 20s themselves, they already feel washed-up. The shelf-life of a model is even shorter than that of an actress, it would seem. The melodramatic dialogue also suits the noir style: “Your expiration date is almost due. Who wants sour milk when you can get fresh meat?”

Jesse escapes the motel which is full of threats – from both wild animals and humans – and goes to stay with Ruby in a large and mysterious house. In the great documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself, Thom Anderson talks of how “the phony historicism of the architecture and interior décor reflects the dishonesty of the lives within,” referring to the Spanish-Colonial revivalist home of the Dietrichsons in Double Indemnity. In The Neon Demon, the dishonesty comes from the fact that this is not Ruby’s own home, she is house-sitting. This is a common occurrence in LA and is yet another example of nothing being what it seems or being trustworthy. The Hollywood glamour often belies a seedy underworld and the movie industry itself is built on lying and pretense. As with Double Indemnity, the horror of The Neon Demon is so specific to the city it is set in; “you could charge LA as a co-conspirator in the crimes this movie relates.”

The darkest and most controversial moment of The Neon Demon, which prompted many walk-outs in theaters, is still absolutely in-keeping with the world of noir. It features Ruby as a necrophiliac, made all the more shocking by the fact that both perpetrator and victim are women. We are more used to seeing the after-effects of this kind of sadistic crime on a murder victim in a noir, such as the titular Black Dahlia, so seeing it unfold before our eyes is a lot to take in.

The final noir trope that The Neon Demon fulfills is that the protagonist is (spoiler alert) murdered and then there is an epilogue, in which the story continues, now following her murderers. Often in noir there is a twist concerning the narrator/protagonist. We may discover at the end that he has been speaking from beyond the grave and is the victim, or that he was in fact the murderer. Noirs frequently lull us into a false sense of security regarding who we trust (as this film does with Ruby) and then pulls the rug out from under us.

While The Neon Demon certainly has elements from the horror genre (and there is nothing wrong with that), Nicolas Winding Refn also uses the language of LA neo-noir to weave this tale at the dark heart of the modelling industry. It has high drama, gorgeously neon-lit visuals and fantastic performances. Along with Nocturnal Animals (as mentioned at the start), Gemini (2017) and Destroyer (2018), LA noir has had some excellent recent additions and The Neon Demon is certainly one of them. Dive into Los Angeles’s dark and dirty underbelly – you know you want to.