Movie review: Black Swan
Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological horror film directed by Darren Aronofsky and features Natalie Portman as lead character.The movie follows the twisted and dark journey of Nina Sayers, an aspiring ballerina and the price of perfection.
Plot and presentation:
The movie follows the journey of Nina Sayers, a 28 old ballerina who works for New York City ballet company.The movie begins with Nina having a dream about she was dancing the swan lake and she was the swan queen.Later her dream comes close to reality when the director of the company announces that their company will start the new season with Swan Lake and chooses Nina for an audition for the role of swan queen.
During the audition Nina gives a quite flawless performance of the white swan but fails to perform the Black Swan as she was focusing too much on "perfection" rather than letting go. During the audition Lily, another ballerina of the same company enters the audition room quite forcibly causing Nina to lose focus.Thinking that she might have lost the role Nina returns home and breaks down crying to her mother.However on the next day it was revealed that she got selected for the role of swan queen.
The movie starts to turn more and more darker when Beth Macintyre, the once swan queen is forced to retire against her will causing Nina to take her place. During these time Nina's mental health deteriorates as she hallucinates more often and starts seeing doppelganger and starts scratching her back impulsively.
Her character starts taking turn again when Lily(played by Mila Kunis) takes her out to a bar where she hallucinates of having orgasm with Lily.The day after that was the premiere of Swan lake. During the period Nina's mental state is worse than ever. There's a constant dwell going on her head. The pressure of the role drives her near insanity. She starts to suspect that Lily may take her role. When she sees Lily dressing for the Black swan she kills her using a sharp piece of glass. However at the end it is shown that she did not harm Lily but somehow injured herself with the piece of glass. At the end Nina(Natalie Portman) gives a hair raising performance of Swan queen. As she jumps off everyone notices her injury and she says it was for perfection.
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| source: pinterest.com |
- Black swan is one of the best movies of the psychological horror genre. The lead character Nina Sayers, seem to have several mental disorders such as borderline personality disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. Though the movie begins with a lighter tone, the dark twist and turns keeps the audience at edges.
- Being chosen to be the swan queen, the accident of Beth, and always fearing that someone might take her place altogether puts enormous amount of pressure on her driving her into madness.
- Black swan also shows us glimpse of "alternative reality". From seeing the doppelganger on the subway to the killing of Beth. Its hard for the audience to determine what is reality and what is not.
- The driving force of this movie is perfection. The movie also successfully brings out the importance of mental health making it a must see for fans of this genre.
- The ending was undoubtedly the most puzzling moment of the movie.With many questions left unanswered this movie leaves the audiences clueless.Some of them are: did Beth actually die? if not then why was blood in Nina's hand? How did Nina injures herself and still continues to perform like that? And did Nina actually die at the end? or was it just a part of her that die?
Verdict:
Black Swan is a great experience but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's completely flawless.The CGI and visual effects used in the movie is not up to the mark although they do have a very little impact.At some points the movie feels overly sexulised. Apart from these the movie is excellent. Shot on a low budget of $1.3 cr the movie was a box office hit, earning $330 million. The movie also nominated for the best picture academy award. Natalie Portman won the oscar for best actress.
The rating for this movie would be 9.0/10.
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