Black Swan (2010)
I am completely blown away by this movie. It's been haunting me all night since I've watched it less than twelve hours ago! As the movie ended, it left me thinking, and I caught myself astonished, by all aspects of the movie; the unpredictable plot, the strong characters, & the unbelievable harshness of reality in it.
As we all know, Black Swan is directed by Darren Aronofsky, other of his movies which I know of include Pi and The Wrestler, but I only have seen The Wrestler, and I know that he's famous for his serious, dark, real, and heavy-sprinkled-dirty-themed movies and all that, which I've seen depicted in The Wrestler, as well as in this movie. Black Swan stars Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder, and Barbara Hershey.
I'll try not to spoil most of the plot for you, but here it is.
So, there's gonna be an opening production for the new season, Black Swan, and Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), the artistic director, holds this audition to see which dancer is perfect for the role of the Swan Queen. Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), this sweet, fragile, 'mommy's girl', overly protected by her ex-dancer mother (Barbara Hershey) is perfect for the role of the innocent and graceful White Swan, but she finds herself incapable of portraying her twin, the artful, sensual and seductive Black Swan. Nina ultimately wins the role of the Swan Queen, and she struggles every day to be able to be less controlled and let go of herself a little to dance the Black Swan. Nina is now the star ballerina of the production, replacing veteran Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder), who is 'let go' by the company. Meanwhile, a new ballerina, Lily (Mila Kunis), her imprecise yet gay, effortless dancing, is perfect for the role of the Black Swan. Nina senses rivalry from Lily and feels intimated by her. They form an abrupt friendship together, which then again twists into a rivalry, again erupting from the fear of being replaced by Lily. Nina gets in touch with her dark side, even dangerously deeper than she ought, alternately blending in perfectly with the Black Swan. In the end, her role as the Swan Queen is performed 'perfectly', very 'perfect' indeed. As Nina Sayers says herself, by the end of the movie, "I was perfect." Oh my God, I have this huge urge to discuss this word, 'perfect', and how important this word is in the movie, but I don't want to spoil, since it's still a rather new movie and most people have probably not seen it yet! But count on that word, 'perfect'; it has a huge meaning in the movie since the beginning, and in the end. At this point of the movie everything made perfect sense to me and I was really haunted by it till this very moment!
Natalie Portman's performance was downright flawless and amazing! Not only as portraying the sweet, fragile, yet strict Nina Sayers as a character, but also living up to it as a ballerina, the controlled, perfectionist, graceful ballerina who craves for the role of the Swan Queen, and also perfectly transcending in character to her dark side. I was personally amazed that she was able to show so much emotion and character while she was doing the ballet. I mean, I don't know much about ballet, but I think she was the perfect ballerina, so perfect in being alive in that role while dancing, truly living up the character of Nina as a ballerina. An outstanding performance indeed by Natalie Portman, and even though I haven't found out the nominees for the Oscars except for her, I'm sure she'll win it because she definitely deserves it, just as she did the Golden Globe.
Performances by others were outstanding as well, and truly living up to their characters, especially Mila Kunis. Mila Kunis -she's like that girl we all know from That 70's Show, in which I've also seen her in The Book of Eli. To star in a remarkable motion picture like Black Swan aside the 'veteran' Natalie Portman, and to escape being overshadowed by her and the rest of the cast, was a really great accomplishment and proved her quality as an actress.
I've heard that Black Swan is considered as the ballerina version of Aronofsky's The Wrestler. But Black Swan is a cleaner cut, has a more classy setting, and presented beautifully; a perfect portrayal of the ballet world. The darkness, the dirtiness, are left to be inflicted upon the characters and the dialogues. Darren Aronofsky shows a perfect direction of a movie telling the story of a ballerina that was so real, sucking us into that world, making known to us the details of their world, all the goodness and badness, the trash-talking, the two-faces, the harshness of their world, and that it's not as perfectly nice and clean as people may think it is.
I have to say, at some time the characters were too... 'dirty' for me. I mean, I personally don't like movies with a bunch of sexual content in it, and I thought the kissing scene between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis somewhat..., I don't know, 'needless'. But hey, if you think that that and all the rest of those contents were heavily important for the strength of the story, that's fine by me. Okay, well, perhaps they are important, but still, based on my own taste I definitely would've liked it better if they minimized it a little. But anyways, I've seen The Wrestler and it's the same there. It's Aronofsky, and I know he wants to make it perfectly real as possible. Don't judge me, though.
Black Swan was certainly an original, raw, heavy-themed movie, at the same time it was heartbreaking, soul crushing, as well was dark and hauntingly beautiful. You may love it, or you may hate it; this movie is bound to definitely divide the audience into those two boxes. I absolutely don't hate it, but I'm not sure whether I love it that much either, but I can surely objectively say that it was an amazing unforgettable motion picture, showing the greatest act yet by Natalie Portman, and that it haunts me to this moment.
As we all know, Black Swan is directed by Darren Aronofsky, other of his movies which I know of include Pi and The Wrestler, but I only have seen The Wrestler, and I know that he's famous for his serious, dark, real, and heavy-sprinkled-dirty-themed movies and all that, which I've seen depicted in The Wrestler, as well as in this movie. Black Swan stars Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder, and Barbara Hershey.
I'll try not to spoil most of the plot for you, but here it is.
So, there's gonna be an opening production for the new season, Black Swan, and Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), the artistic director, holds this audition to see which dancer is perfect for the role of the Swan Queen. Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), this sweet, fragile, 'mommy's girl', overly protected by her ex-dancer mother (Barbara Hershey) is perfect for the role of the innocent and graceful White Swan, but she finds herself incapable of portraying her twin, the artful, sensual and seductive Black Swan. Nina ultimately wins the role of the Swan Queen, and she struggles every day to be able to be less controlled and let go of herself a little to dance the Black Swan. Nina is now the star ballerina of the production, replacing veteran Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder), who is 'let go' by the company. Meanwhile, a new ballerina, Lily (Mila Kunis), her imprecise yet gay, effortless dancing, is perfect for the role of the Black Swan. Nina senses rivalry from Lily and feels intimated by her. They form an abrupt friendship together, which then again twists into a rivalry, again erupting from the fear of being replaced by Lily. Nina gets in touch with her dark side, even dangerously deeper than she ought, alternately blending in perfectly with the Black Swan. In the end, her role as the Swan Queen is performed 'perfectly', very 'perfect' indeed. As Nina Sayers says herself, by the end of the movie, "I was perfect." Oh my God, I have this huge urge to discuss this word, 'perfect', and how important this word is in the movie, but I don't want to spoil, since it's still a rather new movie and most people have probably not seen it yet! But count on that word, 'perfect'; it has a huge meaning in the movie since the beginning, and in the end. At this point of the movie everything made perfect sense to me and I was really haunted by it till this very moment!
Natalie Portman's performance was downright flawless and amazing! Not only as portraying the sweet, fragile, yet strict Nina Sayers as a character, but also living up to it as a ballerina, the controlled, perfectionist, graceful ballerina who craves for the role of the Swan Queen, and also perfectly transcending in character to her dark side. I was personally amazed that she was able to show so much emotion and character while she was doing the ballet. I mean, I don't know much about ballet, but I think she was the perfect ballerina, so perfect in being alive in that role while dancing, truly living up the character of Nina as a ballerina. An outstanding performance indeed by Natalie Portman, and even though I haven't found out the nominees for the Oscars except for her, I'm sure she'll win it because she definitely deserves it, just as she did the Golden Globe.
Performances by others were outstanding as well, and truly living up to their characters, especially Mila Kunis. Mila Kunis -she's like that girl we all know from That 70's Show, in which I've also seen her in The Book of Eli. To star in a remarkable motion picture like Black Swan aside the 'veteran' Natalie Portman, and to escape being overshadowed by her and the rest of the cast, was a really great accomplishment and proved her quality as an actress.
I've heard that Black Swan is considered as the ballerina version of Aronofsky's The Wrestler. But Black Swan is a cleaner cut, has a more classy setting, and presented beautifully; a perfect portrayal of the ballet world. The darkness, the dirtiness, are left to be inflicted upon the characters and the dialogues. Darren Aronofsky shows a perfect direction of a movie telling the story of a ballerina that was so real, sucking us into that world, making known to us the details of their world, all the goodness and badness, the trash-talking, the two-faces, the harshness of their world, and that it's not as perfectly nice and clean as people may think it is.
I have to say, at some time the characters were too... 'dirty' for me. I mean, I personally don't like movies with a bunch of sexual content in it, and I thought the kissing scene between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis somewhat..., I don't know, 'needless'. But hey, if you think that that and all the rest of those contents were heavily important for the strength of the story, that's fine by me. Okay, well, perhaps they are important, but still, based on my own taste I definitely would've liked it better if they minimized it a little. But anyways, I've seen The Wrestler and it's the same there. It's Aronofsky, and I know he wants to make it perfectly real as possible. Don't judge me, though.
Black Swan was certainly an original, raw, heavy-themed movie, at the same time it was heartbreaking, soul crushing, as well was dark and hauntingly beautiful. You may love it, or you may hate it; this movie is bound to definitely divide the audience into those two boxes. I absolutely don't hate it, but I'm not sure whether I love it that much either, but I can surely objectively say that it was an amazing unforgettable motion picture, showing the greatest act yet by Natalie Portman, and that it haunts me to this moment.
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