.jpg)
.jpg)
Title: 'Black Swan'
Release Year: 2010
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder.
Plot: Nina, a troubled, frigid, rave ballet dancer obsessed with being perfect, starts to go mad when she's cast as The Swan Queen in a Swan Lake production. The pressure of the role and her overprotective mother turn her unstable mind and her life into a nightmarish, self-destructive thorny path that increasingly threatens her own physical and mental safety.
Review: And if 'Inception' was an example of how innovative blockbusters can be (done right they can really become masterpieces), 'Black Swan' is the other side of the coin; a recent proof that independent cinema can actually reach mainstream audiences, thanks to Aronofsky's masterful direction and Portman's indescribable performance.
'Black Swan' was for me 2010's best film for many, many reasons. To start with, it feautres as its lead a disturbed, misunderstood character: Nina. While desperately working to be perfect, she's cast as the Swan Queen in the revival of the play and, whereas at the beginning she bursts in tears and emotionally tells her mother what she has achieved, her reality soon starts to collapse around her. Natalie Portman is just perfect. Yes, the film is almost perfect at every level but Portman's performance is something out of this world: fragile, scared, deranged, obsessive, agressive, hallucinatory... She delivers all this while showing how little by little her obsessions become her self-destruction.
Naive and fragile, Nina's innocent beginning, and the beauty of her pure world will quickly be drowned by the shadows of her mind
In Nina's environment, one of the key pieces is her mother. Strict and almost dictatorial she is one of the many thorns that end up cracking the already cracked ballerina. Then there are the shadows, her different faces: Lily (her wild side) and Beth (her dying self-destructive side). Between her "professional enemy" (only in her mind) and her inevitable future, we find Thomas, the director of the play, who insists on her relaxing a bit, even making moves in sexual fields.
Each element destabilizes Nina's mind little by little, who starts seeing the ghosts of her fears while she prepares for the final act of the film. Through the two hours, she discovers her darkest side, strongly endangering her mental security, and leading to the opening night in an uncontrolled situation. Once that part starts, we're thrown to a thrilling vertiginous transformation; from the disastrous first act, where her white swan perfection is smashed by her constant hallucinations, through the murder of Lily, when her dark side emerges, causing her to nail her black swan, ending in the realisation that the self-destruction has reached its maximum stage: in one of her hallucinatory scenes (the one in which she supposedly murders Lily), she stabs herself.
Knowing what she's done, she tearfully prepares for her final act, after which she is cheered for her impressive performance, before Lily and Thomas realise that she's bleeding. In her last breaths, Thomas asks her "What did you do?", Nina smiles and answers: "perfect, I was perfect". And deep down, she really was, going at last through every stage of her beloved Swan Queen, even dying in the process.
And the film goes up and up to the lights that Nina will no longer see, ending with one of the most amazing and chilling final climaxes I've ever seen. By the end, Aronofsky's work turns him into a visionary, the film into a masterpiece and Portman into and Academy Award winner.
'Black Swan' was for me 2010's best film for many, many reasons. To start with, it feautres as its lead a disturbed, misunderstood character: Nina. While desperately working to be perfect, she's cast as the Swan Queen in the revival of the play and, whereas at the beginning she bursts in tears and emotionally tells her mother what she has achieved, her reality soon starts to collapse around her. Natalie Portman is just perfect. Yes, the film is almost perfect at every level but Portman's performance is something out of this world: fragile, scared, deranged, obsessive, agressive, hallucinatory... She delivers all this while showing how little by little her obsessions become her self-destruction.
Naive and fragile, Nina's innocent beginning, and the beauty of her pure world will quickly be drowned by the shadows of her mind
In Nina's environment, one of the key pieces is her mother. Strict and almost dictatorial she is one of the many thorns that end up cracking the already cracked ballerina. Then there are the shadows, her different faces: Lily (her wild side) and Beth (her dying self-destructive side). Between her "professional enemy" (only in her mind) and her inevitable future, we find Thomas, the director of the play, who insists on her relaxing a bit, even making moves in sexual fields.
Nina's mother scary obsessiveness is one of the causes leading to her mental breakdown
Through the film, Nina's hallucinations only get worse and worse...
Each element destabilizes Nina's mind little by little, who starts seeing the ghosts of her fears while she prepares for the final act of the film. Through the two hours, she discovers her darkest side, strongly endangering her mental security, and leading to the opening night in an uncontrolled situation. Once that part starts, we're thrown to a thrilling vertiginous transformation; from the disastrous first act, where her white swan perfection is smashed by her constant hallucinations, through the murder of Lily, when her dark side emerges, causing her to nail her black swan, ending in the realisation that the self-destruction has reached its maximum stage: in one of her hallucinatory scenes (the one in which she supposedly murders Lily), she stabs herself.
Nina's transformation while performing in the Swan Lake is magnetic, emotional and a thrill for every moviegoer. An authentic work of art.
Knowing what she's done, she tearfully prepares for her final act, after which she is cheered for her impressive performance, before Lily and Thomas realise that she's bleeding. In her last breaths, Thomas asks her "What did you do?", Nina smiles and answers: "perfect, I was perfect". And deep down, she really was, going at last through every stage of her beloved Swan Queen, even dying in the process.
Yes, you were...
And the film goes up and up to the lights that Nina will no longer see, ending with one of the most amazing and chilling final climaxes I've ever seen. By the end, Aronofsky's work turns him into a visionary, the film into a masterpiece and Portman into and Academy Award winner.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario