It's the story of Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), a repressed ballet dancer that lands her dream roles of The White and Black Swan Queens in a production of Swan Lake. The stress that Nina experiences preparing for these roles slowly begins to take a toll on her mental psyche and eventually drives her to the very edge of sanity. I've already said too much as it is, so I won't elaborate any more.
Natalie Portman does an amazing job as Nina; the uber-obsessed and innocent ballet dancer that finds out the hard way that getting what you want ain't all its cracked up to be. Mila Kunis puts on a different performance from her previous ones as Lilly; Nina's friend that may or may not be after her role. Vincent Cassel puts on a decidedly creepy and inspiring performance as Thomas Leroy; the director of Swan Lake. Barbara Hershey is also perfect as Nina's overbearing, obsessed ex-ballet dancer mother that has pushed Nina to land the lead roles.
The cinematography in Black Swan is some of the best and most interesting of the year. Throughout the film the camera trails closely behind Nina and swirls around her as she dances though her rehearsals, sometimes to the point where it may make some with motion sickness, uh, sick. Darren makes some very interesting choices with the movements of his camera and constantly breaks the actors personal space, getting right up in there during some of the crucial and most mind-melding moments of the film. This all helps to suck the viewer right into Nina's world as we become witnesses to her slowly degrading mental state, viewing most of the proceedings from her twisted point of view (yet another interesting choice).
Let's not forget about the choreography seen here because, after all is said and done this film does focus on ballet a good bit. Natalie Portman proves she is not only a great actress, she is also an enchanting ballet dancer as every shot of her dancing is Portman herself and not some double. It's this fact that helps the viewer to greater appreciate the dancing she does here since, let's admit it, ballet does seem like a pretty hard thing to do. The Swan Lake sequences are beautiful in and of themselves and the film explains the story of Swan Lake in the simplest terms so that everyone in the theater can comprehend it. The film itself is almost step for step the story of Swan Lake as well as doubling as a metaphor for Hollywood and a commentary on the art of creativity ....another interesting choice (if you haven't noticed by now, this film is chock full of interesting choices).
The score for the film is a mix of the actual score for Swan lake and an original score for the film. Now, since I'm not a ballet enthusiast I cannot say which is used where but I can say that they mix together quite nicely and I honestly couldn't say where the original score stopped and the Swan Lake score began.
If anything, Black Swan will be sure to leave most viewers with a higher appreciation for the art of ballet and the amount of time, energy and stress that goes into a production. Nina is so obsessed with becoming the Black Swan (hence the title) and is being pushed by so many around her to do the perfect performance that the stress and pressure ultimately drive her insane, and the audience along with her. Throughout the film we are never truly sure of what is really happening and what Nina is actually hallucinating. It's a real treat when you can't trust what is being shown to you, making the whole movie a guessing game until the shocking finale.
Black Swan plays out like a really bad acid trip, and I mean that in the best way possible, as a compliment. All the actors here do a phenomenal job and should be commended for their work, Natalie Portman especially. In the end all the pieces (camera work, chereography, acting, directing, script, Score, etc) come together to form one big confusing puzzle that is never fully completed until the final minutes of the film. Black Swan more than deserves it's place in the Best Picture nominees for the 2010 Oscar Season, I can't remember a single thing wrong with this film. It's very rare where I can't wait to see a film again but Black Swan did exactly that, it took me on a migraine inducing, head spinning joyride and left me screaming for more.
5/5 BETTER THAN SEX
Awesome review. Be sure to check out my review of Black Swan as soon as possible.
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