After the price of the scene for Drive and Only God Forgives in competition, the Danish director retry his luck for the Palme d gold with the Neon Demon , a film that divides. But he will never compromise, as he explained in a press conference.
How do you respond to the very divided opinions shared following the screening of your film?
Nicolas WINDING REFN. – If you do not mind sharing a work of art, it is abnormal. Creativity inevitably provokes reactions, they are the essence. I always made my films in this way, even before showing my films in Cannes. But what we have in mind, someone will always be there to destroy it. While much progress without compromise, this is where is life.
Your film sometimes looks more like a video. Why did you choose this aesthetic?
I’m dyslexic, images are essential for me so I can understand the world. I learned English very late, when I went to live in New York. The images and sounds foreign made parts of my education. I do not really know what I’m doing. I look at a white wall and say to myself: what do I want to see today? My films are very instinctive, very satisfying but frustrating for others maybe.
“We showed all aspects of beauty: its vulgarity, its extremes, sexuality and violence”
what made you want to treat the beauty in all its forms, as cruel as they are?
We were shown all aspects of beauty: its vulgarity, its extremes, sexuality and violence. It’s terrifying to think that the world revolves around beauty. And this obsession has grown, although it sometimes tries to rationalize, to politicize. The Neon Demon is a film about the obsession with beauty, especially conveyed by television, the media … What will happen when the life no longer exist? How do we define beauty then? I asked myself such questions. People seem to rejuvenate every time more and that concerns me. So I wanted to tell this story as a fairy tale, at the edge of horror teen film.
The fashion world is it more cruel and harder than the movies?
I’m not an expert and I can not criticize this world. But any environment that focuses exclusively on the beauty and appearance is always very hard. It is even unbearable and terrifying to live in an extreme reality. Now it’s like we are. However the aim of the film is not to evaluate or judge the world of fashion. It’s just an interesting global canvas to see Elle Fanning immerse himself.
Why have added a necrophiliac aspect to this search for the ultimate beauty?
Death and beauty come together because it is artificial. In the virtual world you can change the appearance of someone. What one sees is not reality, it therefore means that it is dead. The film tells the gasoline union of death and beauty of the digital revolution. Our children and their children will live in a world where the digital becomes their reality. This might be scary, we can not turn around.
“The last time I saw Lars von Trier, he told my wife that he wanted to fuck her. I hope he has found someone else “
You recently said that you are like the Sex Pistols movie, what that mean?
This is to say fuck the establishment . What I’m doing is punk rock. Watch the reactions you had yesterday! For me there is no question of compromise, that’s how I feel alive.
Does it puts you in competition with your fellow countryman Lars von Trier?
Lars is Lars. He too took drugs, it’s over. The last time I saw him, he told my wife that he wanted to fuck her. I hope he has found someone else.
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