Reviews in the plentiful! Day 2 - Black Swan

[Quillford]

Through my summer of films and travelling around the country I went to see Black Swan. It had been hyped and acclaimed a master piece. It was only time before I would eventually venture onto watching it. In a little old cinema down on the south coast (the kind that have a stage and funfair music coming from the speakers) I began my adventure into black swan.

Black Swan (15)
Genre: Drama
Film running length: 108 min
(excl trailers and advertisements)
UK release date: 21/1/2011
Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Country: United States
Language: English
Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Film Co

Who´s in it?
Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey
What´s the plot?
***BAFTA Winner*** ***Oscar Winner***

Natalie Portman stars as Nina, a ballerina who, driven by her former ballerina mother, is obsessed with dance.

As the new production of Swan Lake approaches, Nina is in line to become the prima ballerina. However, she has stiff competition from a new dancer, Lily – who personifies the role of the Black Swan.

My Rating: (*)(*)*** <2/5>

{I would like to note at this point that this lead to a very steep hill of enjoyment for Natalie's acting. I used to like her -.-}

As the rival dancers become friends, Nina attempts to connect with her own dark side – and risks destroying herself in the process.
So this film was highly anticipated, definitely a one predicted to be one of a kind. Now honestly this kind of film I believe is a rarity. It took something like ballet and made it your world for 108 minutes. The reason I rate this film as "alright" is because of the shock behind it.
I genuinely thought after Star Wars and V for Vendetta we would see a different side to Natalie Portman, but the character she plays is perfect for her One Trick Pony career. She plays a mousey girl who is obsessed with her Ballet; the film really takes you through ballet and the troubles dancers face. If you didn't know about ballet before the film, you certainly will afterwards.
A warning for this film is that I believe it is incorrectly classified (15 instead of 18). It has extreme sexual contrast that throws itself at you from nowhere within the film. This for me really took lots away from the film, that and Natalie Portman. The thing that props this film up was the accomplishment of making something as deep as ballet so interesting and immersive. I felt like I was swanning in and out of a dream while watching it. It had a good story with a genuinely beautiful ending that has such a fantastic unique view into modern dance and the human mind. I would recommend seeing this film, noting that it does shock with a sexual sub-theme and if you enjoy Natalie Portman's acting.


This review was written a while ago - but most of it I still agree with. If you are going to have Natalie Portman get licked out by a lesbian only to be realise that it's not important to any element of the story - you can't claim it's a master piece. I don't give a flying curtsey if it has had award after award or who the shagging director is. This film for me would have been a lot better without Natalie Portman, Un-needed sexual scene's and piss poor character development. I am a man as much as the next guy but there is nothing more uncomfortable then seeing two lesbians go down on each other in a theatre of old grandma's and your fiance sitting next to you look like she wants to die! They could have at least warned us! So what do I think when I look back on Black Swan months on -

[trashcanman]

In order to understand and embody the Black Swan in dance, Portmans' pure and innocent character needed to experience that dark, dangerous, sensual side of life. That is the purpose of the sex scenes. Her obsession with the rival dancer she feels personifies the Black Swan comes to a head in a (imaginary?) lesbian romp which she throws in her mothers' face. These are things her character would never have done. These were things she felt she had to do to understand the character she wished to portray with feeling onstage.

Portman is my favorite actress right now. In spite of massive commercial and critical success, she continues to take geeky role after geeky role, Star Wars, V for Vendetta, Thor, Your Highness....hell even Black Swan was originally based on the late, great Satoshi Kon's peerless anime film Perfect Blue. Aronofsky actually bought the rights to remake it (as Tarantino did with Inglorious Bastards) and, like QT, ended up making an entirely different film. But there is still at least one scene that was ripped straight out of the anime as an homage. I think Black Swan frustrates at first because it is literally a film that makes no sense to the viewer since it's viewed through the eyes of a crazy person, but that's also what makes it really unique (Perfect Blue aside). Look up some of the forum posts on IMDB. Every person who watches this film has a different idea of which parts were real and which were imaginary and what even happened at the end. I think that's kind of cool.