Nina: “I’m sorry…”
Thomas: “Stop saying that! Stop sounding so fucking weak!”
-Nina and her director, in a nutshell
“Yes, Black Swan is a horror movie. […] It’s absurdly campy and intensely bleak at the same time. It refuses to give in to the ridiculous notion that a story about a woman must be of interest only to women, as so many films do by avoiding acknowledging that the authorities and madnesses of women are human, instead of something indicative of a peculiar female malady.”
-MaryAnn Johansen, FlickFilosopher.com
“Portman hasn't been this good since her early performances in ‘The Professional’ and ‘Heat,’ and is deservedly attracting intense Oscar buzz. Kunis brings to Lily a savvy sexiness, and Cassel is entertainingly smarmy. As unsettling as it is stylish, ‘Black Swan’ may do for ballet what ‘Jaws’ did for beaches.”
-Calvin Wilson, STLToday.com
“Black Swan revolves around Natalie Portman, a great screen beauty of limited range who plays the same ‘who, me?’ neurasthenic quality in every scene, even in moments, like her first confrontation with Winona Ryder's has-been ballet star, where she might have revealed different sides of the good girl stereotype she's stuck in. She's monotonous, and badly used by her director, who's stuck in some netherworld of not-quite-exploitation and maybe-serious.”
-Dan Callahan, Slant Magazine
At the tail end of 2010, “Black Swan” was the movie of the year. Anyone who was anyone in the movie biz was talking about it. It was as if, in one smooth, symphonic, divinely-choreographed motion, filmmakers and cinema-goers alike decided to give a nice giant middle finger to those who would have you believe that only a testerone-driven male audience matters when it comes to filmmaking.
I don’t like “female” movies. I just don’t. A friend of mine comes up and says to me that “Burlesque” is pretty good. So I check out the trailer, and I see some music sequences, and notice that Cher is in it. And it turns out that a musical starring and/or featuring Cher is not something I would ever want to be caught dead watching.
So then I start seeing trailers for this new movie starring Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise. It’s a romance flick, but it also seems to have lots of explosions and car chases and gun fights and Tom Cruise apparently embracing just how batshit insane he actually is. And I think to myself, “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! This is exactly the kind of movie I’ve been waiting for!” And then I left the theater thinking to myself, “I shall end them! I shall end them, and eviscerate them endlessly, for making me sit through that two-hour travesty! I want my money back!”
Then, after a while, I start seeing trailers for this “Black Swan,” starring Natalie Portman. I’m not crazy about ballet, but I hear nothing but good things about this movie, about Natalie’s acting, the rave reviews, the sense of mystery, Natalie’s apparent transformation, and I think to myself, “Well, maybe I should go see it.”
Natalie Portman’s Nina is a ballerina aspiring to be the star of “Swan Lake: Redux.” For those unfamiliar with the original show, it features a princess trapped in the form of a white swan who must win the affection of a prince in order to regain her freedom. However, a black swan seduces the prince, and in her grief, the white swan commits suicide. Through a chance of fate (and that noticeable lip gloss), Nina is picked as the lead female in Swan Lake. The rest, as they say, is a matter of the three certainties in life: death, taxes, and humanity’s capacity to completely lose its mind.
“Black Swan’s” strengths come from its seamless blending of genres. It’s a coming of age story and an updating (or a “redux,” if one will) of Swan Lake through the art of cinema, and an altogether unique effort to adapt the art of ballet to the big screen, the blending of the two becoming more and more obvious the further the film progresses. It’s a tale of lust, betrayal, madness, and transformation, which will keep you guessing until the very end, and possibly even after the credits.
To try and sum up the plot is an absolute waste. The “A-plot,” as summed up about two paragraphs ago, is concerned with her rehearsals and her efforts to perfect herself as both the white and the black swan. But as Tolkien would have us believe, some stories simply grow in the telling—like, say, the ballerina who slowly turns into a swan, starts killing people, moves out of her home, and tries to take the One Ring back to Mordor where she can plunge the malevolent artifact into the fires from whence it came.
I’ll be frank, though; a large part of the appeal comes from learning just how hardcore ballet really is. Like Rocky and his glorious inability to block all of those punches to the head, Nina has to take one for the team. The sound of those foot bones cracking makes the casual viewer appreciate the kind of time, energy, and flexibility it takes to be a dancer. And that spinning thing a ballerina has to do? Evidently you can borderline twist your ankle just trying to do that. So, yeah, it’s a lot like Rocky, if about five movies and a hundred rounds worth of heavyweight boxing were all concentrated on two dainty little feet.
Our Mick analogue is one director Thomas, the single worst coach a desperate and vulnerable ballerina could ever conjure up in their nightmares. Think House, except much more of an insufferable genius and about a hundred times more misogynistic (or at the least, way too willing to give “the birds and the bees” speech to a twenty-something-year-old woman). And French. In fact, just think of him as the Pepé le Pew of mentors and you’ll have a pretty good idea what his role in the story is.
Thomas, as well as co-star Mila Kunis, helps bring about Nina’s transformation into the black swan, which is as amazing as it is disturbing, erotic as it is terrifying, and indecipherable as it is inevitable. For better or worse, this transformation from the pure yet vulnerable white swan is brought about through her own sexual “liberation,” in the same vein as many a Lifetime love interest who, “over the next 90 minutes, will solve all of your problems with my penis.” Such sadomasochistic, borderline predatory themes, if not downright evil, are still not for the faint of heart.
So goes the hype, the criticism, the conflict between white swan and black swan, and the seamless transition from cinema to ballet and vice versa. It’s a visceral, sometimes maddening film, and an uncompromising glimpse into the psyche of the title character. The Brewsky can give this nothing short of a glowing recommendation.
Note: The Brewsky is an enthusiastic contributor and movie reviewer SWEET JESUS what is wrong with her eyes?! Seriously, why are her eyes doing that?!
Thomas: “Stop saying that! Stop sounding so fucking weak!”
-Nina and her director, in a nutshell
“Yes, Black Swan is a horror movie. […] It’s absurdly campy and intensely bleak at the same time. It refuses to give in to the ridiculous notion that a story about a woman must be of interest only to women, as so many films do by avoiding acknowledging that the authorities and madnesses of women are human, instead of something indicative of a peculiar female malady.”
-MaryAnn Johansen, FlickFilosopher.com
“Portman hasn't been this good since her early performances in ‘The Professional’ and ‘Heat,’ and is deservedly attracting intense Oscar buzz. Kunis brings to Lily a savvy sexiness, and Cassel is entertainingly smarmy. As unsettling as it is stylish, ‘Black Swan’ may do for ballet what ‘Jaws’ did for beaches.”
-Calvin Wilson, STLToday.com
“Black Swan revolves around Natalie Portman, a great screen beauty of limited range who plays the same ‘who, me?’ neurasthenic quality in every scene, even in moments, like her first confrontation with Winona Ryder's has-been ballet star, where she might have revealed different sides of the good girl stereotype she's stuck in. She's monotonous, and badly used by her director, who's stuck in some netherworld of not-quite-exploitation and maybe-serious.”
-Dan Callahan, Slant Magazine
At the tail end of 2010, “Black Swan” was the movie of the year. Anyone who was anyone in the movie biz was talking about it. It was as if, in one smooth, symphonic, divinely-choreographed motion, filmmakers and cinema-goers alike decided to give a nice giant middle finger to those who would have you believe that only a testerone-driven male audience matters when it comes to filmmaking.
I don’t like “female” movies. I just don’t. A friend of mine comes up and says to me that “Burlesque” is pretty good. So I check out the trailer, and I see some music sequences, and notice that Cher is in it. And it turns out that a musical starring and/or featuring Cher is not something I would ever want to be caught dead watching.
So then I start seeing trailers for this new movie starring Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise. It’s a romance flick, but it also seems to have lots of explosions and car chases and gun fights and Tom Cruise apparently embracing just how batshit insane he actually is. And I think to myself, “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! This is exactly the kind of movie I’ve been waiting for!” And then I left the theater thinking to myself, “I shall end them! I shall end them, and eviscerate them endlessly, for making me sit through that two-hour travesty! I want my money back!”
Then, after a while, I start seeing trailers for this “Black Swan,” starring Natalie Portman. I’m not crazy about ballet, but I hear nothing but good things about this movie, about Natalie’s acting, the rave reviews, the sense of mystery, Natalie’s apparent transformation, and I think to myself, “Well, maybe I should go see it.”
Natalie Portman’s Nina is a ballerina aspiring to be the star of “Swan Lake: Redux.” For those unfamiliar with the original show, it features a princess trapped in the form of a white swan who must win the affection of a prince in order to regain her freedom. However, a black swan seduces the prince, and in her grief, the white swan commits suicide. Through a chance of fate (and that noticeable lip gloss), Nina is picked as the lead female in Swan Lake. The rest, as they say, is a matter of the three certainties in life: death, taxes, and humanity’s capacity to completely lose its mind.
“Black Swan’s” strengths come from its seamless blending of genres. It’s a coming of age story and an updating (or a “redux,” if one will) of Swan Lake through the art of cinema, and an altogether unique effort to adapt the art of ballet to the big screen, the blending of the two becoming more and more obvious the further the film progresses. It’s a tale of lust, betrayal, madness, and transformation, which will keep you guessing until the very end, and possibly even after the credits.
To try and sum up the plot is an absolute waste. The “A-plot,” as summed up about two paragraphs ago, is concerned with her rehearsals and her efforts to perfect herself as both the white and the black swan. But as Tolkien would have us believe, some stories simply grow in the telling—like, say, the ballerina who slowly turns into a swan, starts killing people, moves out of her home, and tries to take the One Ring back to Mordor where she can plunge the malevolent artifact into the fires from whence it came.
I’ll be frank, though; a large part of the appeal comes from learning just how hardcore ballet really is. Like Rocky and his glorious inability to block all of those punches to the head, Nina has to take one for the team. The sound of those foot bones cracking makes the casual viewer appreciate the kind of time, energy, and flexibility it takes to be a dancer. And that spinning thing a ballerina has to do? Evidently you can borderline twist your ankle just trying to do that. So, yeah, it’s a lot like Rocky, if about five movies and a hundred rounds worth of heavyweight boxing were all concentrated on two dainty little feet.
Our Mick analogue is one director Thomas, the single worst coach a desperate and vulnerable ballerina could ever conjure up in their nightmares. Think House, except much more of an insufferable genius and about a hundred times more misogynistic (or at the least, way too willing to give “the birds and the bees” speech to a twenty-something-year-old woman). And French. In fact, just think of him as the Pepé le Pew of mentors and you’ll have a pretty good idea what his role in the story is.
Thomas, as well as co-star Mila Kunis, helps bring about Nina’s transformation into the black swan, which is as amazing as it is disturbing, erotic as it is terrifying, and indecipherable as it is inevitable. For better or worse, this transformation from the pure yet vulnerable white swan is brought about through her own sexual “liberation,” in the same vein as many a Lifetime love interest who, “over the next 90 minutes, will solve all of your problems with my penis.” Such sadomasochistic, borderline predatory themes, if not downright evil, are still not for the faint of heart.
So goes the hype, the criticism, the conflict between white swan and black swan, and the seamless transition from cinema to ballet and vice versa. It’s a visceral, sometimes maddening film, and an uncompromising glimpse into the psyche of the title character. The Brewsky can give this nothing short of a glowing recommendation.
Note: The Brewsky is an enthusiastic contributor and movie reviewer SWEET JESUS what is wrong with her eyes?! Seriously, why are her eyes doing that?!
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