After watching countless films so far this year, very few have come as close to brilliance as Black Swan. After enjoying it so much, I thought I would share my views on it with the blogging world. After hearing such brilliant reviews and the inevitable Oscar hype, I was eager to go and see just what all the fuss was about. Going in I had relatively high expectations although I must admit, the idea of a film about ballet was a little off putting, even if Natalie Portman was in the leading role.
To put it simply, Black Swan is the reason I go to the cinema. Films are my favourite media (yes, I do realise I’m on a computer games design course!) and I go to the cinema these days with low to average expectations of what I’ll be watching. Sure, last year produced some fantastic films such as Inception and The Social Network but more often than not, Hollywood churns out complete trash to cater for today’s dumbed down, action seeking audiences. Black Swan, however, gets your adrenaline pumping in a completely different way to fast cars and epic action fights. It evokes every emotion imaginable.
Almost everything about Black Swan can be compared to real, everyday life and while at face value it’s a film based on Ballet, it goes into such depth that it gets into the soul of the viewer. I’m sure you will have by now heard about the basic plot line although for those of you who haven’t, I will outline it below.
Natalie Portman plays Nina Sayers, a professional ballerina that works for Thomas (Vincent Cassel). She gets offered the role of Swan Queen in the upcoming production of Swan Lake, which involves playing both the Black and White Swan. While the White Swan requires an innocent and caring performance, the Black Swan needs to portray sexually charged evil emotions. Nina is fantastic as the White Swan but she struggles with the intensity and pressure of becoming the Black Swan. As the pressure builds, she must change her life and delve deep into her own soul to produce a performance evil enough, which the part demands.
What makes this film so extraordinary is the performance from Natalie Portman and the direction of Darren Aronofsky. Portman is phenomenal and her transition from a kind and caring human being to a sexually charged evil monster is one of the most exceptional pieces of direction I’ve ever seen. It’s a film that plucks at every emotion and its realism is so shocking that it took me days to get over the initial ‘buzz’.
Black Swan is an emotionally charged, rollercoaster ride of a film that will make anyone watching it change their perspective on modern day cinema. It won’t appeal to everyone but I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone that appreciates fine performances and clever, powerful and precise directing. It’s an absolutely superb film that will stick with me for a long time to come. At least there is still a small part of the film industry that can produce a powerful masterpiece like this.
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