By Black Swan was one of these movies I kept hearing about before it even came to the cinema. With a cast starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel, I was bound to get interested anyway. But all the praise on the Internet really got me hooked. When I found out that the man behind Black Swan was Darren Aronofsky, who was also responsible for The Wrestler as well as Requiem for a Dream, I was sold.
Read on for my full review, my first blog on this site and a little experiment with how all this works. Please bear with me 🙂 (also bear with my writing since English isn’t my first language)
The Black Swan is the story of Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman). She is one of many ballet dancers in a well known new york ballet company, and all of them are competing to become the new swan queen in an interpretation of swan lake by the ballet director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel). They are also competing for the succession of Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder), the former muse of the director, although they don’t know that yet. Beth naturally isn’t too happy about that.
Nina lives in a small apartment with her mother,
Black Swan was one of these movies I kept hearing about before it even came to the cinema. With a cast starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel, I was bound to get interested anyway. But all the praise on the Internet really got me hooked. When I found out that the man behind Black Swan was Darren Aronofsky, who was also responsible for The Wrestler as well as Requiem for a Dream, I was sold.
Read on for my full review, my first blog on this site and a little experiment with how all this works. Please bear with me 🙂 (also bear with my writing since English isn't my first language)
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The Black Swan is the story of Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman). She is one of many ballet dancers in a well known new york ballet company, and all of them are competing to become the new swan queen in an interpretation of swan lake by the ballet director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel). They are also competing for the succession of Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder), the former muse of the director, although they don't know that yet. Beth naturally isn't too happy about that.
Nina lives in a small apartment with her mother, who was also a ballet dancer, but gave up her dream to raise Nina. She is worried that her daughter makes the same mistakes she did, and tries to protect her. But Nina is blind to all warnings and torments herself to become the swan queen. Nothing will stand in her way.
One of her competitors is Lily (Mila Kunis), a newcomer in the ballet who soon becomes one of the directors favourites. With her laid-back attitude, dancing seems to come naturally to her. She is the perfect counterpart to Nina and threatens her place as the swan queen. Or at least that's what Nina believes.
Having watched The Wrestler, I kind of knew what I was getting myself into. Being more of a horror/thriller fan, I don't usually delve into the depressing depths of a drama film that often. When I do however, I appreciate the Movie not being as slow as you might expect with this genre. Both Wrestler and Swan kept me gripped from beginning to the end, which was part because the story was so interesting and well told, and part because of the stellar performance of the actors.
Portman is definitely the star of the show. There is no denying that no matter how good the performances of the other actors are (and they are great) they still appear shallow against what Natalie Portman has done for this movie. They are merely the supporting cast. That said, I am really happy to see Mila Kunis in more movies and I hope this role helps getting her a little bit more attention in Hollywood, because I believe she has a lot of potential.
Natalie Portman delivers a scary metamorphosis here. From the very beginning of the movie the audience will know it's going to be one hell of a ride, and before the credits roll I don't believe anyone will be left unaffected by whats happening on screen.
It's really hard to describe the experience, since I don't believe I have ever seen anything like it. You could probably say it's a little bit like The Wrestler, but even more intense. It also feels shorter but that might be because The Black Swan presses forward much more intense than The Wrestler did. It doesn't have as much downtime. I feel it's paced almost perfectly, you will be exhausted when it ends, but in a good way.
Overall Score: 9.00 – Supreme (We’re lucky if even one film a year scores between 9.00 and 9.50, and these instant classics will go down as some of the best movies we’ve ever seen in our lives.)
If anything, The Black Swan will be a movie to remember as either a turningpoint, stalemate or steppingstone in the carrer of Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and maybe even Darren Aronofsky. Aronofsky is off to make wolverine, a definitive departure from previouse works, But I liked the first Wolverine so that might not be a bad thing.
Anyway, this is a movie that I will recommend to everyone I know, that's how good I think it is.
I hope some people will enjoy this review, and I am open and happy for any criticism. It's the first full review I have written in English, so I still need to work on phrases and stuff like that, but that's one thing I hope to achieve with writing more 🙂