Black Swan 2010
This movie got quite a bit of attention when it came out and Natalie Portman won the best actress award at the Oscars for her performance. I wanted to see it, but I went in with low expectations, thinking it could be an unintentionally funny movie about crazy murderous ballerinas. I should have more confidence in Hollywood to do its job. Yes, it is a movie about a crazy murderous ballerina, but I liked how it played out. The movie centers around a young, but grown, ballerina preparing for her first role as the lead in a new production of Swan Lake. She is barely keeping a grip already, but once she becomes the lead the other ballerinas are jealous, the jerk of a director thinks she belongs to him, and she has an odd rivalry with a new dancer who is better than her at being the black swan of the story. Meanwhile she still lives with her mother who is a crazy former ballerina.
The Swan Lake story infuses the plot of the movie, to a pretty good effect. The movie can be pretty frustrating because of certain elements which we see as real but are figments of Portman’s imagination. Ultimately, I didn’t mind that. While the movie has a lot of clichés and the basic plot about a paranoid lead fearing the usurping understudy has been done before, this is a good production and the ballet adds a little class (as opposed to, say, Showgirls where they were strippers). Be warned this is a very dark movie, like Kafka’s version of Swan Lake, with its portrait of someone with incredible pressures not dealing well with any of it. And there is quite a bit of raw, not at all postive sexuality even without any nudity. Throw in some very cringe-inducing scenes of self-mutilation and maybe you get a better idea of what is going on. I don’t know that the movie will be remembered as one of the greats, but it is still fine entertainment.
Written: 02 Oct 2011
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital