"I was perfect..."

We thought it would be a great idea to spend New Years Day at the movies, seeing two films that I really wanted to see before my holidays were over: Black Swan and True Grit. We didn't really consider the fact that everyone else in the city thought about doing that exact same thing. All the hungover stragglers from the night before came to the theater to eat junk (and apparently barf in bathroom sinks) and relax at a movie. Needless to say, we didn't manage our second feature. We did get to see Black Swan though, which was my priority, so I came away pleased nonetheless. I've been wanting to see this film for months, anxiously awaiting it's release to theaters, and I definitely was not disappointed.


Director Darren Aronofsky has truly triumphed with his beautiful nightmare, Black Swan. Natalie Portman stars as Nina, a timid and sheltered ballerina in New York who gets her shot at stardom when her director Tomas Leroy(the always great supporting actor Vincent Cassel) casts her as both the Swan Queen and the Black Swan in his stripped-down, retelling of Swan Lake. Her perfectionism and purity make the role of the White Swan effortless to her but she struggles to capture the dark intensity and sexuality of the Black Swan. It doesn't help that Nina is trapped living with her overly protective and virtually insane mother who is living vicariously through her, reveling over giving up her own career as a ballerina to be a parent. I loved the tensity of all the shots in the apartment with her mother. I never cringed so much at seeing someone angrily snip at someone's nails before. It was fantastic!

Then, as Tomas pushes every boundary possible to get Nina to let go and properly embody the Black Swan, Nina is faced with a rivalry and twisted friendship from Lily (Mila Kunis), a laid back and wild dancer who conveys more passion and ability to be the Black Swan that Tomas is looking for. Is Lily really after friendship or is she out to steal Nina's role? A scene that has gotten perhaps more attention than the beauty of this film itself, is the steamy sex scene between these two characters. When you have actresses as beautiful as these two, it's hard not to dwell on that scene. But what really gets this movie going and makes it tense and unique, are the hallucinations and parallels between reality and Nina's personal demons. She's constantly seeing things that aren't there, some more gruesome than others, and it slowly drives her into a false sense of reality and identity. She sees herself committing acts that may or may not be real and physically morphing into the swan she is so desperate to properly embody.




I loved the creative and beautifully done make-up effects, like the itchy goose flesh wound on her back that begins to sprout feathers, and the prosthetic change-o-head with a neck that stretches during a scene where Nina strangles herself. There were also some nasty looking wounds on Winona Ryder for her hospital scenes that I loved, and numerous stages of red contact lenses that made her transformation so much more effective.The beautiful and enthralling camera work by cinematographer Matthew Libatique dances and glides with the actors onscreen and adds such an amazing sense of realism. I loved how it was paired with subtle touches, like the sort of bird-like flapping noises used when groups of dancers would go by during Nina's peak of hallucination. That paired with the wonderful performance of the actors, Portman in particular, make the film feel so hauntingly real and gets you emotionally involved with Nina and her spiraling reality. She displays such a softness as Nina in the beginning that makes you immediately feel for her and then embraces Nina's descent into darkness with such grace and sadness. As she mentally morphs (and briefly physically onscreen) into the Black Swan during her opening night performance, you notice such an amazing change in her attitude and dancing that is so haunting to watch. The role felt like it was made for Natalie Portman to play.


Aronofsky is able to bring together the elements of female sexuality, compulsion, obsession, identity crisis and the psychological horror elements of films like Repulsion, Jacob's Ladder, Suspiria and others of the 60s and 70s into such a captivating, devastatingly beautiful movie, both visually and emotionally. I can definitely say that this film is at the top of my list of favourite movies of 2010. And since I got James to download it as soon as we got home, I think I just may go watch it again now.