Where do I start? Well, first of all: my praises! It is a great movie, and I recomend catching it on the big screen.
A powerful and engaging performance on many levels: it is a thriller, a ballet, a meditation on life, a tale of a sexual awakening, a dream, an allegory, a story of rise and downfall. Black Swan is deeply and deliciously symbolical with fascinating dichotomy in characters and decorations. In the end it is whatever you want it to be... No wonder there are so many mirror scenes in the movie, huh?;)
It skillfully intertwines cultural references and studies the universal, raw human nature. Black and white sets and costumes visually drew me towards the Eastern notions of yin and yang. The ballet art form and Vincent Cassel's French accent ties in with the "old world" and European sensibilities, while the modern New York setting makes the story current and cosmopolitan.
The main character's progression and development gracefully dances down the theoretical line between painful existential transformation and psychotic breakdown. Through a medically-tinted lens you may pick up specific symptoms: paranoia, illusions, delusions, hallucinations, and progressive loss of insight. But all these negative changes are mixed in with positive ones as the character gains more energy, success, strength, determination, self-worth, discovers the pleasure of sexual expression, frees herself from her protracted childhood and rebels against her controlling suffocating parent figure. She wins and looses. Holds on and lets go. Perishes and becomes. But which is which?
When you watch this movie, will you see a story of a life broken down under pressure, or of a struggle for freedom and self-realisation? Once the credits roll out, will you have had seen a happy ending, or not?
Perhaps your reaction can tell you a bit about what your own white to black swan ratio is...
Go see it and gain a taste for growing a few black feathers!;)
A powerful and engaging performance on many levels: it is a thriller, a ballet, a meditation on life, a tale of a sexual awakening, a dream, an allegory, a story of rise and downfall. Black Swan is deeply and deliciously symbolical with fascinating dichotomy in characters and decorations. In the end it is whatever you want it to be... No wonder there are so many mirror scenes in the movie, huh?;)
It skillfully intertwines cultural references and studies the universal, raw human nature. Black and white sets and costumes visually drew me towards the Eastern notions of yin and yang. The ballet art form and Vincent Cassel's French accent ties in with the "old world" and European sensibilities, while the modern New York setting makes the story current and cosmopolitan.
The main character's progression and development gracefully dances down the theoretical line between painful existential transformation and psychotic breakdown. Through a medically-tinted lens you may pick up specific symptoms: paranoia, illusions, delusions, hallucinations, and progressive loss of insight. But all these negative changes are mixed in with positive ones as the character gains more energy, success, strength, determination, self-worth, discovers the pleasure of sexual expression, frees herself from her protracted childhood and rebels against her controlling suffocating parent figure. She wins and looses. Holds on and lets go. Perishes and becomes. But which is which?
When you watch this movie, will you see a story of a life broken down under pressure, or of a struggle for freedom and self-realisation? Once the credits roll out, will you have had seen a happy ending, or not?
Perhaps your reaction can tell you a bit about what your own white to black swan ratio is...
Go see it and gain a taste for growing a few black feathers!;)
Here's a poem to match:
The monkey is reaching
For the moon in the water.
Until death overtakes him
He'll never give up.
If he'd let go the branch and
Disappear in the deep pool,
The whole world would shine
With dazzling pureness.
The monkey is reaching
For the moon in the water.
Until death overtakes him
He'll never give up.
If he'd let go the branch and
Disappear in the deep pool,
The whole world would shine
With dazzling pureness.
Hakuin
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