Black Swan - A Nightmarish Dream


                                       There is a saying that, "Art lies in concealing art." Whenever, you think about a great actor or actress, you just think about their excellent characters in movies. But, do we know how hard a artist tries to give his amazing performance? ‘Black Swan’ is a story of an artist driven to insanity by perfection and ambition. If you are big fan of psychological thrillers, this is a must watch. We get a wholesome view of the human psyche, essentially a female psyche.

Plot 
     Natalie Portman plays Nina, a dancer in a fictional New York City company who is completely consumed by ballet. Shy, virginal, still under the thumb of her domineering stage mother (Barbara Hershey), she is an accomplished but over-controlled dancer. Her artistic director, Thomas (played with great zest by Vincent Cassel), urges her to loosen up. Unless she can express the wild, dark sensuality of the Swan Queen's alter ego, known as the Black Swan, she will never win the iconic part.
                 But Nina clings to her obsessive self-discipline. It's what keeps her from spinning out of balance. The deeper she delves into the role, the harder she strains to differentiate between the dance company's backstage treacheries and the sinister world of her own imagination. 

Analysis 
         Natalie Portman gives us one of the best examples of acting. Portraying Nina requires breadth and depth of emotion, and Portman never strikes a wrong chord. Most of Nina's dancing is performed by Portman, without a 'dance double.' The effort she put into a several-months' intense ballet training really pays off. She also deservedly won a Oscar, last year. Mila Kunis of Friends with Benefits fame, exhibits the capacity of playing more than featherweight roles in comedies. Most of her performance exists in the shadow of Portman's but, in its own way, it is as impressive. Vincent Cassel, the french actor  is perfect as Thomas, adding a dash of the dark and edgy to his devilish charming personality.
                           Director Aronofsky(Requiem For a Dream) captures the essence of a major New York ballet production. He borders by balancing some truly creepy, bloody stuff with some stunningly beautiful ballet sequences enhanced by digital effects.

                        The ending of Black Swan is open to interpretation. It is not cut-and-dry.  You will no doubt be hearing and reading a lot of debate over what it says, or what it tries to say; about how much of what happens in the film is "real" or "unreal", or what. In terms of genre, the movie mixes surrealism, neo noir, supernatural, thriller, erotica, musical and drama in the right proportions.

                           Black Swan is many things but also an allegory of darkness which lurks in every human being. The darkness makes one weak and gives superhuman strength too. The challenge in life is to face it, lose oneself in it and also to control it. 

What makes "Black Swan" really special is the immediate way that it works on you if you give yourself over to it. 

          It's a true cinematic experience, the one that can be savored ---while it gleefully messes with one's head.

Trailer :

Movie Rated R for sexual content, disturbing violent images, and language.

2 comments:

Deepak Karthik said...

Its like Kamal hasaan movie, if we fail to listen at some point,,, we can't get the entire essence !
good movie
DEEPAK

Anonymous said...

kamal Hassan is certainly a man of substance.