Black Swan (2010) Darren Aronofsky

Last Sunday I went to watch Black Swan.  I had great expectations, since almost everybody that had seen it, had told me it was by far the best movie of the year.  I've watched almost all of Aronofsky's films and consider myself to be a huge fan of his work.  The truth is, high expectations are the worst curse on a movie you're about to see... almost unequivocally they'll be left unfilled.



Black Swan is a great movie.  It has the best Natalie Portman's performance ever.  She's just mind-blowing, and honestly I'm not sure the movie would sustain itself without her.  There's not enough words to describe how unbelievably good her acting is, and I think everybody will agree with me on that one. 

The cinematography is beautiful.  The choreography between the camera and the ballet dancers is simply perfect, it's smooth and tender but powerful and dynamic... it has the best balance.  The 16mm film was a great idea, with all that grainy texture and high contrasting images, the movie gets the right atmosphere.

I had a problem with the sound design.  I think the film uses too much music.  I know the idea is to reinforce the metaphor of the ballet "The Swan Lake" coming to life through Nina's schizophrenic mind, but I think my whole problem with the movie was just that, Aronosfosky being afraid of the metaphor not being comprehensible... I think his mistake was to underestimate the audience ability to grasp metaphors and hidden meanings.  The same goes to the sequence of the last dance, with the black feathers in Nina's arms and the red eyes... that was too much for my taste, I found it to be too obvious.

The other thing I didn't like about the movie, aside from Mila Kunis and Barbara Hershey's acting, was the representation of the black swan coming to life... the drugs, the promiscuous sex, the lesbian experience, the rebellious attitude towards her mom, the seducing of the teacher... I think they're all cliches of teenagers going wrong.  Aronofsky has enough talent and could have easily escaped the trite stereotypes and give the evil in the black swan the transcendence it deserves. Maybe if he had dared to explore a little further the self-mutilation instinct in Nina... but that's just a thought.

In conclusion I think it's a great movie, and people should definitely watch it and learn from it.  But I don't think it's Aronofsky's best work, I still think Requiem for a Dream and Pi are way better.  So go watch it, just don't go with extremely high expectations and you'll definitely enjoy it.