This Darren Aronofsky film, Black Swan
examines our desire for beauty, fame, and perfection. It shows glimpses of splendor, but also the harsh realities of the life of a professional ballet dancer. If you're a fan of the ballet, you'll want to check this film out.
Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman's debut film is far from a standard ballet flick. Portman plays a dancer named Nina, who is obsessed with ballet. This obsession pushes her to perfection, which ultimately drives her into a state of delusion. Her teacher, a difficult woman named Barbara Hershey, tries to help her overcome her compulsion to be perfect while she tries to be loose and destructive. The result is a film that feels both uplifting and discouraging at the same time.
Portman's performance is astounding. In many scenes, Portman is frighteningly realistic. She embodies a sexually repressed child, as well as a fallen angel. She makes the role complex, emotional, and corrupt. Her performance in Black Swan is an acclaimed example of acting at its finest.
As a movie about a woman whose identity is being questioned, Black Swan is one of the best studies of a female breakdown since Roman Polanski's Repulsion. It has creepy Manhattan interiors and a dark conspiracy of evil surrounding the main characters. It even looks like Rosemary's Baby. As an actress, Portman makes a surprisingly good performance in one of her meatiest roles to date.
Darren Aronofsky
"Black Swan" is a film about artistic devotion and the physical demands of the performing arts. The film is one of the few that captures the essence of its subject better than any other. It explains the meaning of devotion to art better than anything else, and is more representative of Aronofsky's work than his previous film, "The Wrestler." It's not that the two films are alike, or that they are cut from the same cloth, but their stark contrast makes the difference.
As a director of art, Darren Aronofsky has a keen eye for details. The film is partly inspired by the ballet "Swan Lake," which Peter Tchaikovsky originally created in 1875. The film has a darker tone, and its themes are echoed in the ballet's music.
The film is filled with emotional turmoil, and the tension builds gradually to an intense tornado-like conclusion. The director's use of a surrealist technique, known as Argento, lends it a sense of unpredictability. It's a film that will leave you breathless. The film is also very moving.
David Cronenberg
The director's latest is a body horror film that has cinema verite elements. Its sexually graphic moments leave little to the imagination, and its relentlessly surreal imagery makes the audience feel uncomfortable and complicit in the film's psychodrama. Animated pictures, self-reflective faces, and the transformation of Nina's body are all a part of the experience.
Despite its flaws, Black Swan is an interesting movie that offers great performances and striking cinematography. While Aronofsky is not subtle, he gets the most out of his actors. It is a film that succeeds despite its over-the-top style and clumsiness.
The director's approach to the film's subject matter - suicide - is not new. The director has addressed this issue in previous works, including "The Fly" and "Videodrome." The film's final scene depicts James Woods' antihero holding a gun to his temple, psyching himself up to pull the trigger. The director argues that freedom comes with a price: the freedom to kill.
The Wrestler
If you liked The Wrestler, you'll definitely love The Wrestler: Black Swan. Director Darren Aronofsky originally conceived the film as a companion piece to the original. Though the two films are vastly different, there are many similarities between them. For example, both films push their stars to their physical limits. For the movie, Natalie Portman and Mickey Rourke had to undergo a rigorous 10-month training program in ballet, and they both looked emaciated at the beginning of the film, but they were so eloquent in their dancing scenes that they made it seem effortless.
Although Aronofsky's filmmaking skills are not well known, his vision is incredibly unique. It focuses on the nuances of dance, but it also explores the inner workings of the body. Both movies are set in East Coast cities and both involve arcane rituals and physical challenges. Both movies also explore the tension between ambition and age.
