Blacks Swan - my review, and others

Finally got around to seeing this last Friday. "Wow!" was all I could say when it was done, followed by "That was *^#@#& up!". Aronofsky is one seriously brilliant, messed up, genius. The film grabs you and doesn't let go, and it is disturbing, but I don't doubt that it will be one that is taught in film classes for years to come. Never will I go see one of his films again without being properly fortified! If you haven't seen it yet, and are interested in being drawn into an artist's world, and watching her decent into loss of control and being in touch with reality, from a first-hand like perspective, do yourself a favor and go see it on the big screen - it's been out a while so it's not in most theatres already. You may end up not liking it, but you will never forget it!

Some reviews:
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/47643
Darren Aronofsky's force of nature BLACK SWAN makes Capone once again reorder his Best Films of 2010 list!!!
Published on: Dec 03, 2010 12:35:48 AM CST

Aronofsky's genius (and it's something he's toyed with before, especially in REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) is the idea that a great deal of what Nina sees happening to or around her is all in her head. Aronofsky is most comfortable in those moments when reality and delusional fantasy co-exist.

It's fantastic seeing Hershey back in top form. Her face may look slightly older, but her performance knifes its way under your skin to reveal every overbearing thing your mother ever did. She is the personification of passive-aggressive behavior--there's a scene with a birthday cake that will make you want to murder somebody--and her soul-sucking relationship with her daughter is destructive, bordering on dangerous, and Hershey absolutely crushes the performance. Vincent Cassel (recently seen the title role in the two-part MESRINE) has long been one of my favorite actors, but I really liked the way he injects a huckster quality to Thomas. He's selling a lifestyle to Nina, the same way he has with all the women who have come before her, because he knows breaking her in with such a challenging performance will make her his for as long as he wants. He is as evil as he is charming and handsome, and Cassel is one of the few actors with the strut to pull it off.

BLACK SWAN is a devastating work of power, style, and unfiltered tension. It's about the psychological price of personal accomplishment. It's about having your soul crushed and having it set free. And most importantly, it's about the differences between breaking free and being broken. Make no mistake, the almost-constant look on Natalie Portman's face is fear. The challenge I put to you is figuring out what she is most afraid of. And after you've compiled your list of possible answers, the correct choice is "All of the Above." BLACK SWAN will rattle you something fierce.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/47657
Massawyrm calls BLACK SWAN an incredible work of damaged beauty
Published on: Dec 03, 2010 7:21:56 PM CST

On the surface the film is a dark, brooding sister-piece to THE WRESTLER, illustrating the slow destruction of a woman’s body for the sake of beautiful motion. But underneath its sinister exterior, Aronofsky is really grappling with something more elemental; he’s trying to expose the beating, bloody heart of the artist. BLACK SWAN isn’t so much a film about obsession, jealousy and self-destruction as it about finding the dark places inside ourselves in order to touch an unrefined piece of the universe as to bring it back and forge it into art. Nina wants desperately to be an artist, but she simply doesn’t know how to be one. Art isn’t about precision; it is about emotion. And that theme permeates even the smallest details of the film. This isn’t just about the physical breakdown of a ballerina; it is about the mental and spiritual abuse one performs on oneself being an artist.

That journey is chronicled in dramatic, pained and even bloody detail throughout every beautifully uncomfortable moment of this film.

To say that this is Natalie Portman’s greatest performance is to do it disservice.

There is little else to say about this film except to demand that you see it immediately. It is an incredible work of damaged beauty; a soulful, deep meditation on the very essence of art and its relationship to the artist. This film will be taught in film schools ten years from now and for good reason. See it. Now.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/47621
Copernicus has some issues with Aronofsky's THE BLACK SWAN!
Published on: Dec 01, 2010 11:24:02 AM CST

Natalie Portman plays Nina Sayers, an aspiring ballet dancer with remarkable technical ability, but little passion. The ballet-within-a-film here is SWAN LAKE. Nina has no problem playing the innocent and graceful White Swan role, but she struggles with the darker side that she also must portray, that of the Black Swan. That is, until she becomes a thrall to her ballet director, played by Vincent Cassel. As she becomes jealous of a rival, Lily, played by Mila Kunis, struggles with her obsessive mother (Barbara Hershey), and has a confrontation with the dancer she replaced, Beth (Winona Ryder), the dark side of Nina emerges.

The problem with BLACK SWAN is the same problem that most of Aronofsky’s films have -- he’s incapable of subtlety. Well, nearly, because THE WRESTLER, Aronofsky’s best film, is not as in-your-face as it could have been -- it at least had quiet moments where Micky Rourke’s fascinatingly ruined face did most of the work. But look at THE FOUNTAIN -- it is a pastiche of bombastic moments strung together by shouts and whispers. And subtle is the last word you’d use to describe REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. In BLACK SWAN, Aronofsky’s Achilles heel is front and center.

And charters don’t just get angry, they rage. They shout, hurl projectiles, seduce, and destroy. Yes it is supposed to be operatic, but there is a fine line between opera and soap opera, and Aronofsky pushes right up to the edge and breakdances on it.

Strangely, it is these operatic touches that almost work.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/47856
AICN-Downunder: BLACK SWAN, ANOTHER YEAR, THE KING'S SPEECH, UNSTOPPABLE and Yasujirō Ozu!
Published on: Dec 24, 2010 4:47:17 PM CST

It is with this film that Darren Aronosfky makes the transition from One of the Best Filmmakers Working Today to One of the Greatest Filmmakers of All Time.

I've been trying to let BLACK SWAN sink in, but it simply refuses to. It's staying at the forefront of my mind, stubbornly resisting any attempt at a considered and tempered analysis. For all its depth and layers, the film is such an incredible visceral assault, you need a machete to carve your way through the instinctive emotive reactions you experience during and after this film.
BLACK SWAN is ostensibly the story of a young ballet dancer (Natalie Portman) trying to make it to the top in the prestigious dance company she is in. The company's director (Vincent Cassell) has decided to stage a production of "Swan Lake" in which the characters of the White Swan and the Black Swan are played by the same dancer. Portman's Nina, she is told, can play the White Swan well, but may never convince as the Black Swan.
What follows is one of the most potent journeys into a character's dark side in the history of storytelling. The parallels between the ballet and the real world are not played down, but operate on every level within reach, especially on the surface. There is tremendous subtlety in this film, but it is hidden under some very overt metaphors, and that overtness is entirely successful: ballet is one of the most theatrical of performances, and so the depiction is the sensory violation you didn't even realise you were hoping for.

I have seen the film described as a horror film, and it is hard to argue with this. It is a descent into madness, and as such, not a style of horror we are used to seeing. Even the best horrors don't usually delve so triumphantly inward, or with such careful eye to how each and every scare informs character and story and theme. It is symphonic the way the elements are all combined into one perfect whole; if this film is, indeed, a horror, then it may be the finest horror ever made.
Natalie Portman gives the performance of her career, and although it seems trite to say that sentence -- as it is, oddly, the sort of thing we say so often -- it is meant with the full force it should command. Nina is deeply unhappy, and even her moments of happiness seem clouded by the sadness in her eyes. Like Nina preparing to play both White and Black Swans, Portman must play these two opposing emotions in every single moment, maintaining the careful balancing act at every turn, yet infusing her character with enough undulations to keep her from feeling as if she is ever repeating herself. There is both a consistency and a newness to the way she moves Nina through the film, and the way she slowly brings the darkness out is nothing short of perfection.

I could keep typing forever and still never scratch the surface of why or how this film works. It is an absolute watermark in cinema, a masterstroke that works on every conceivable level. Aronofsky is so far ahead of the game it's just not funny, and despite my absolute adoration of THE FOUNTAIN, I can say without hesitation that BLACK SWAN is his finest film.