Well, I obviously had extremely high expectations for this film as Darren Aronofsky is one of my top absolute favourite directors! I love everything he does. I'll admit that I was the SLIGHTEST bit skeptical when I heard that he was doing a movie about a ballet dancer...cause, I just found it strange, I couldn't really picture it. But, I should have known better, because he puts an amazing spin on ballet, making it shocking for anyone expecting a typical 'ballet' movie (Heard a few stories from friends...was NOT what they were expecting :P )
The movie revolves around Nina, an extremely dedicated and quite good ballet dancer. She scores the role of swan queen in a ballet production put on by the studio she belongs to. The catch is...the role of the swan queen is a progressive one...in which the swan transforms from the elegant and confident white swan to a dark and depressed black swan...
She has trouble transforming into the black swan on the stage, as she is too uptight and controlled...until, slowly, she loses control and her mind as the transformation becomes very real.
Natalie Portman actually does a fantastic job...I'm not really a fan, as I don't fully agree with a lot of the acting roles she accepts...I don't really feel as though she has high standards...which makes me question if she really knew what a fantastic role she had from Aronofsky...BUT I'll leave it at that because I have no complaints about her performance in this particular film.
I read recently someone compared Darren Aronofsky to Nick Cave...and at first I was kinda like 'what the fuck' ...how....and then, the more I thought about it, the more it actually makes complete sense. They both produce work that is extremely raw, gritty, and real. It's the real shit! It's not going to come easy for the audience...it's gross, and disturbing, and ugly but SO intriguing...you cannot stop watching it no matter how uncomfortable it makes you (and it WILL make you uncomfortable).
This time, Aronofsky focused on the grit in the characters rather than the setting like with Requiem or Pi. So...I do see the resemblance between Cave's work and Aronofsky's and I am a HUGE fan of them both.
One last thing that I need to mention is the length of the film. It's an hour forty I believe, and within that hour forty there are very few 'slow' moments and even those are completely entertaining. I feel like so many movies now are like going for two and a half hours...and I don't know if they think that that somehow improves the quality of the movie, but it really doesn't. It's quality over quantity for sure. The length of the movie was ideal. It would have been so easy to drag it out and make it nice and long...but he didn't and I appreciate it. :P
Definitely a must see.
9.3/10
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